Ottawa, September 28th 2022
“This evening, we met with senior executives from Bell, Rogers, Telus, Eastlink, and Xplore to discuss the situation in Atlantic Canada in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona.
We were provided with a situation report on the status of network outages and the companies’ ongoing efforts to restore services in the affected areas.
Although many Canadians experienced services issues, we noted that there was no significant damage to telecom infrastructure and that complete restoration of services is well underway.
We commended the companies for assisting each other during this emergency, as per the recent agreement reached between Canada’s major telecommunications service providers.
More importantly, we reminded them of their commitment to transparency in that agreement, which includes providing clear and timely communications to keep Canadians and relevant authorities informed about response and restoration efforts during major network outages.
We instructed them to review potential logistical and procedural gaps that may exist in their emergency response plans, and to work with partners, including utility companies and the operators of other key critical infrastructure, to enhance coordination.
These services are essential to Atlantic Canadians and we will continue to ensure providers are restoring outages as quickly as possible.”