Summary

  • The CRTC has given a TELUS mobile project along Quebec’s Route 138 until 3 November and a separate project along Routes 204, 283 and 389 until 29 December.
  • Each order cites weather-related safety delays at two sites. Existing funding and statutory service conditions continue under the new dates.

The road to a better signal now has two clocks on it. On 19 October, Canada’s telecom regulator approved separate deadline changes for two publicly funded TELUS mobile projects in Quebec. The Route 138 order ends at 3 November. The Routes 204, 283 and 389 order runs to 29 December. Both approvals follow weather-related safety delays at two project sites in each case.

The shorter clock belongs to a project now covering about 132 kilometres of eligible Route 138 roadway and eligible areas with 533 households in Rivière-au-Tonnerre and Rivière-Saint-Jean. The 2022 award originally described about 175 kilometres and three communities. A later statement of work removed Port-Menier’s access and transport components because they had been completed before the award. This Route 138 project already received a one-year extension in 2025 for consultation delays; the October order moves its August 2026 completion date to 3 November.

The longer clock covers roughly 35 kilometres of eligible roads and seven named communities: Barrage Manic-2, Lac-Frontière, Saint-Adalbert, Saint-Marcel, Saint-Philémon, Sainte-Félicité and Sainte-Lucie-de-Beauregard. The 2022 funding decision implied an August 2025 finish under the fund’s three-year expectation. Its statement of work later moved that to summer 2026. TELUS asked in April for 29 December, and the CRTC has now agreed.

In both orders the Commission says it reviewed the justifications, including confidential project material, and found the safety delays outside TELUS’s reasonable control. It also records substantial progress. The decisions change the completion dates while leaving the funding conditions and the section 24 Telecommunications Act conditions in force. That makes the next documents practical ones: completion evidence for the roads and communities named in each order, measured against each project’s approved scope.

Sources