Bizarre letter raises concerns for safety of banker at CRTC hearings

Just when we thought that the endless regulatory summer from Hull could not get any weirder, lawyers for an alleged (by them) Canadian wireless carrier filed a request for a secret appearance by a secret banker or other financial institution (hmm who could that be we ask?) with secure access to in-camera CRTC hearings so that other Canadian carriers could not be in a position to identify and subsequently do bad things to said secret banker or perhaps his or her friends and family assuming that such friends and family exist.

In summary, the lawyers for the alleged (by us) foreign carrier requests a ruling from the Commission that it will not disclose any information regarding the name or other identifying characteristics of the Bank or other financial institution that may appear at the hearing on this matter to deal with evidence of ******’s (we have removed Globalive’ s name to protect their identity)past, current and projected financing plans and that the CRTC provide secure access to the hearing room for the bank or other financial institution so that representatives of the incumbent wireless carriers or the public cannot ascertain the identity of the bank or other financial institution.

Your erstwhile blogger, having a rather checkered and unfortunately non-anonymous career in regulatory matters, can remember no request quite so bizarre or unprecedented. Not to say that these things never happen in Canada. Why it was only back in 1958 that former Soviet spy Igor Gouzenko appeared on Front Page Challenge wearing his trademark hood to protect him from KGB hit squads.

Whendogsrunfree recommends watching the clip of Igor’s appearance to get a feel for what the CRTC in camera panel hearing may look like. I think you will agree that Fred Davis made a wonderful Chair for that panel. http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/national_security/topics/72/.

While it is a given that in some countries wearing hoods in public is a good idea for reasons of personal safety, Canadians have generally shunned this practice and even our American cousins tend to look askance at the few remaining relics of the past who see hoods and sheets as some sort of fashion statement.

Now I don’t disagree that TELUS will take a hard position on matters of law and principle (like we think as a matter of law and principle that a foreign entity holding 65% equity and 98% debt of a company makes that company foreign), we don’t tend to act like the KGB when it comes to problem solving and as far as we know have never forced our competitors or critics a state of paranoia that requires a hood (although it has been rumored but not ascertained that Michael Geist is prone to Ray Ban’s when near an angry crowd of TELUS employees).

As for the need to protect bankers from the public we can only suggest that after the financial collapse of the last year that they might want to consider the Igor look regardless of the CRTC ruling on this nutty request.