Summary

  • The CRTC’s 9 October 2026 decision rejects Iristel’s request to review and vary the 2025 ruling that found Northwestel had reasonable grounds to disconnect services after payment talks failed.
  • The Commission separates what Northwestel could reasonably believe at the moment of disconnection from the later test for reopening a decision: Iristel had to show substantial doubt, and the CRTC found it had not.

The interruption itself lasted about a day. Northwestel disconnected Iristel’s services on 7 August 2024 after a payment deadline expired; service returned the next day when the companies reached a deferred-payment agreement. The latest decision is not a finding about a new disconnection. Telecom Decision 2026-265 is the CRTC’s answer to Iristel’s later request to revisit Telecom Decision 2025-246, which had denied relief over the same event.

The sequence began earlier. In June 2024, the Commission had told Iristel to pay overdue amounts or negotiate a plan with Bell Canada and Northwestel. It also required advance notice if a later disconnection was planned, so other providers using Iristel’s services could alert their customers. Northwestel sent a new notice on 28 June and extended the final deadline to noon on 7 August. Iristel and Northwestel did not complete a payment agreement by then.

The 2025 ruling focused on the carrier’s position at the moment it acted. Northwestel needed reasonable grounds to believe Iristel was not prepared to enter into or honour a reasonable agreement. The CRTC said the record showed negotiations began in the final days of the notice period, despite earlier offers and extensions. It also found that Iristel returned a signed proposal only after the disconnection, with material changes to the amounts due. On that record, the Commission found Northwestel was entitled to disconnect under its General Tariff.

It also rejected claims about shared-cost interconnection facilities and late-payment charges, and found no basis for a penalty.

Iristel’s December 2025 review application challenged two factual findings and the legal conclusion drawn from them. It said it began talks by 2 August, before the final deadline, and argued that it was using ordinary negotiation leverage rather than refusing to pay. It also said Northwestel’s draft payment agreement included amounts related to Ice Wireless, Iristel’s affiliate, and that Northwestel invited it to remove that account. Northwestel disputed Iristel’s characterization of the negotiations and said the revised proposal changed the amounts and terms it had offered.

The review decision did not treat Iristel’s stated intention as the question it had to settle. The CRTC said the earlier case had assessed whether Northwestel had reasonable grounds, based on the information available at the time, to conclude that Iristel would not enter into or honour a reasonable agreement. In the review, the question was whether Iristel showed substantial doubt about that decision’s correctness. The Commission found the earlier record still supported its findings: the negotiation started late, the final deadline passed without an agreement, and the revised proposal changed core payment terms.

The CRTC viewed the changes as going beyond removing an affiliate’s account because the amounts to be paid were also altered.

The review-and-vary procedure is a defined correction route, not simply another round on the merits. The CRTC may revisit a decision under section 62 of the Telecommunications Act, but its published framework asks applicants to show substantial doubt, for example through an error of fact or law, a fundamental change, an overlooked basic principle or a new principle. Decision 2026-265 says Iristel did not meet that threshold. It therefore leaves the 2025 decision intact.

The boundary matters for other providers, but the decision does not create a blanket disconnection rule. Its reasoning turns on this tariff, this account and the evidence in this proceeding. Nor does the record establish that downstream customers lost service during the one-day interruption. The earlier notice requirement was meant to give other providers time to inform their customers; the current decision does not report what happened to them.

Sources