Why would the CEO of Telus want to meet the Industry Minister, when the Industry Minister refused to meet the CEO of Telus?

As we all know by now, the Industry Minister wants to meet with the CEO of Telus concerning Telus’ plans to charge their customers for incoming text messaging. That’s nice.

However what isn’t so well known is that almost a year ago to this date (actually late June 2007), the Industry Minister refused a request from the CEO of Telus to meet with him. The CEO of Telus wanted to speak with the Industry Minister about Telus’ announced intention to propose a merger with BCE. Telus had already been hamstrung by BCE in its attempts to carry forward with a firm proposal ,since BCE was placing unrealistic demands on Telus, such as the requirement that Telus sign a non-disparage clause that would preclude Telus from making any disparaging comments about the impact of a private equity LBO on BCE.....read: increased consumer costs.

Telus’ CEO simply wanted to meet with the Industry Minister to explore ways that Telus’ made in Canada could be a palatable outcome for Industry Canada. The Industry Minister refused Too busy I guess.. Meanwhile we had the Finance Minister meeting with the Chairman of Cerberus, John Snow. Flaherty denied they talked about BCE. Snow said they did. I guess that means they did.

So why does Cerberus get a meeting on short notice with the Finance Minister to discuss their pending bid for BCE and Telus does not? Double standard or what?

My advice for the CEO of Telus is to meet with Jim Prentice by teleconference. Why fly to Ottawa, when the only purpose of the meeting is purely political and for the sole benefit of Prentice? If Prentice were truly concerned about the cost of telecom services in Canada, he would never have approved the LBO of BCE.....his department never even conducted a “net benefits test” on this $52 billion deal, as confirmed below:

Conversation: ATI Request A-2007-00288/JS

Good afternoon Mr. Fullard,

I can confirm that no studies or net benefits tests were done within Industry Canada.

Regards,

Janet Sewell
Senior Advisor/ Conseillère principale
Information and Privacy Rights Administration/
Administration des droits à l'info et à la protection des renseignements personnels
Industry Canada/ Industrie Canada
235 Queen Street
5th Floor, West Tower
C.D. Howe Building
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H5
Telephone/ Téléphone: (613) 948-2279
Facsimile/ Télécopieur: (613) 941-3085
E-mail/ Courriel: sewell.janet@ic.gc.ca