House of Commons industry committee to investigate Rogers outage

The House of Commons industry committee agreed Friday to study the massive Rogers Communications outage that left millions of Canadians in a communications blackout for more than 15 hours last week.

MPs on the committee agreed unanimously to probe what happened during a special meeting Friday.

The July 8 outage affected Rogers mobile and internet users, knocked out ATMs, shutting down the Interac payments system and preventing calls to 911 services in some Canadian cities.

The committee will hold at least two meetings by the end of the month and invite officials from Rogers, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Committee and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne to testify.

It wants answers about the cause of the outage, its impact, and best practices to avoid future outages and to better communicate with the public during such emergencies.

In an email, a Rogers spokesperson confirmed company executives will attend the hearings.

“We will work collaboratively with the members on the Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology to provide details on the cause of the outage and the actions we are taking to enhance the reliability of each of our networks moving forward, including through formal mutual support agreements,” said Rogers in a statement.

Laurie Bouchard, a spokesperson for Champagne, said his office was aware of the invitation and that they “will continue to collaborate with the committee.”

In an email, a spokesperson for the CRTC said they would respond to an invitation from the committee “in a timely fashion.”

Rogers President and CEO Tony Staffieri apologized to customers in an open letter over the weekend, saying at the time Rogers would be crediting impacted customers directly. The company announced earlier this week it will credit for five days of service.

In an open letter on Tuesday, the CRTC ordered Rogers to provide a detailed explanation for the widespread outage by July 22, and answering the questions on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ the outage happened, as well as what measures are being put in place to prevent it from happening again.

Conservative MP and former industry critic Michelle Rempel Garner wrote to the committee last week requesting it hold an emergency meeting. The NDP has also called for bringing Rogers, Interac and Champagne to committee.

Rogers Communications Inc. is the parent company of this website.