Summary

  • On October 9, 2026, the CRTC denied Iristel’s request to review its 2025 decision about Northwestel’s disconnection of Iristel’s services in August 2024.
  • The Commission said the earlier decision had not assessed Iristel’s private intention to pay; it asked whether Northwestel had reasonable grounds, at the time, to believe Iristel was not ready to honour a reasonable payment agreement.

A review application is not an automatic second hearing on the underlying commercial dispute. It asks whether the prior decision is sufficiently doubtful to be revisited. In Telecom Decision 2026-265, issued October 9, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rejected Iristel’s attempt to reopen the finding that Northwestel was permitted to disconnect its services after the parties failed to settle overdue charges or a payment plan.

The dispute began with service bills that Iristel had not paid while related regulatory and court matters were pending. After earlier CRTC directions to pay or negotiate, Northwestel set a deadline for payment or a deferred payment agreement. It extended that deadline more than once. The services were disconnected on August 7, 2024, and restored the following day after the parties entered an agreement. The Commission denied Iristel’s request for relief in Decision 2025-246.

Iristel’s later review request challenged two factual findings and the legal conclusion built on them. It said its late start to negotiations was a bargaining strategy, not evidence that it would refuse a reasonable plan. It also said changes to Northwestel’s final draft were meant to remove charges associated with Ice Wireless, an affiliate that was not part of this dispute. Northwestel argued that Iristel had waited until the notice period was almost over and then returned a draft without the payment amounts needed to make a workable agreement.

The CRTC held that Iristel began substantive negotiations in the final days of the notice period, accepting the risk that the talks might not finish before the deadline. It also found that the marked-up draft did more than remove Ice Wireless: it removed the repayment amounts. Because those amounts were central to a deferred payment agreement, the Commission found no factual error. The decision did not decide whether Iristel privately intended to pay.

It reaffirmed the narrower question from the earlier case: whether Northwestel had reasonable grounds, based on Iristel’s conduct at the time, to conclude that it was not prepared to enter or honour a reasonable agreement.

That boundary matters. The CRTC’s 2011 review-and-vary guidelines require an applicant to show substantial doubt, such as an error of fact or law, a fundamental change in circumstances, or a missed principle. Decision 2026-265 applies that test to this record; it does not announce a general permission for carriers to disconnect services whenever a payment dispute arises. Nor does it find that every contested invoice or amended draft justifies disconnection.

For operators that buy services from another carrier, the practical lesson is narrow but consequential: deadline extensions, proposed instalments, disputed line items and each revision to a payment agreement can shape what a counterpart is reasonably entitled to conclude. The case does not establish a universal contract rule, and its record concerns one dispute. It does show why a party seeking time should document both the amount it accepts and the terms it contests before a notice period expires.

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