Jagmeet Singh Slams The Rogers Outage As The Feds Lay Out A Plan To Prevent It Happening Again
"This monopoly can not continue."
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. Right: A red Rogers van.
After the nationwide Rogers outage on Friday, July 8, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh had some words to share on social media about what happened.
While a national committee on the outage meeting took place, Singh pointed out on TikTok some major issues with telecommunications in Canada that Friday's outage has drawn attention to.
"The recent Rogers outage has literally shocked and rocked our entire nation," said Singh. "It's an example of what goes wrong when one company has far too much power."
He said this can cause issues when it comes to accessing essential services like 911 calls, as well as important financial transactions on debit cards.
"The impact of this outage makes it clear this [telecommunications] monopoly cannot continue," he said, referring to the limited number of telecom options for consumers in Canada.
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Singh also drew attention to the potential Shaw and Rogers merger that's in the works and called for those against it to sign an NDP petition.
Following a meeting with telecom CEOs — including Rogers' Tony Staffieri — Canada's federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology François-Philippe Champagne demanded immediate action from the industry to address and prevent similar situations in the future.
"The national outage of telecom services that millions of Canadians experienced in the last few days is unacceptable," Champagne said in a statement.
"That’s why today I brought together the heads of the major telecom companies to demand they take immediate action to improve the resiliency and reliability of our networks by ensuring a formal arrangement is in place within 60 days."
\u201cThe national outage of telecom services that millions of Canadians experienced in the last few days is unacceptable. Full stop. It affected people across the country, emergency services, small and medium size businesses and payment systems.\u201d— Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne (FPC) \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udde6 (@Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne (FPC) \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udde6) 1657571248
The arrangement set up by the government will require companies to work out deals that set up emergency roaming, mutual assistance in cases of outages and better communication protocols during emergencies.
"This is just a first step," continued the minister. "Canadians deserve more from their providers in terms of quality and reliability of service, and I will ensure they meet the high standard that Canadians expect."
The Rogers outage, which affected the entire country, saw a widespread lack of both internet and mobile phone services.
For most of July 8, millions of Canadians couldn't access the internet or telecommunications, and even non-Rogers customers felt the effects of the outage.
The CEO of Rogers has since apologized and promised that an automatic credit has been added to the account of all those affected.