Bell Canada, covid, seniors discounts, and essential service.

[brett 1]

There are a lot of companies small ones and large ones pitching in to help people hit by covid 19. 

Many are reducing their prices, I've noticed food stores are having a lot more sales than usual, all in an effort to help people survive and get through covert. There are even sites that show seniors where they can shop to get seniors discounts. like the one on the next link below

link to businesses offering seniors discounts

 

But i noticed Bell Canada is not on that list of many companies that offer discounts to seniors !!!.

I can walk into a Salvation Army thrift store, or a Value Village thrift store and their cashiers will go out of their way to ask me if im a senior and to let me know that their store will gladly give seniors a discount. For god sake these are simply thrift stores and yet they step up and support our nations seniors. Go to the link above and see for your self all the companies some wealthy and some small that are willing to support our seniors with discounts.  Or simply type into google "covid discounts" or "covid specials" etc and see for yourself all those businesses who are either trying to help out because of covid or have always given discounts to seniors.

 

 

This nation is going through a pandemic people are losing jobs across the nation and this nations main controller/operator of the national phone and communications system Bell Canada has not only not ever given discounts to seniors in normal times as far as i can tell , but has not even reduced its prices to pitch in and help people stay in contact with each other during a global pandemic crisis.

At a time when the nations peoples have become dreadfully isolated from their loved ones, Bell Canada is carrying on as business as usual. Bell still charges twice the amount for basic services compared to say freedom mobile and chatter which both cost around 25 dollars compared to Bells 50 dollars in Toronto....

 

Does the Government really View Communications and Bells role in it as a NON-ESSENTIAL SERVICE ...seriously? ... 

Can you just imagine losing your job because of this covid pandemic , and then having to find money for food, and rent, heat, and then not being able to afford the phone bill, and so you have to cancel your phone / and internet..., And then god forbid you get sick with covid and have no internet to look up the its symptoms, or no phone to call an ambulance with, or even the ability to contact your family so they can hear your last words ... or in a less intense scenario, simply be able to afford internet access so that the family can be connected with loved ones trapped  in seniors homes. And what about using the internet as a means of keeping all the children in home schooling, or simply keeping younger kids entertained and occupied while the government orders them to all to stay at home....

Bell Canada basically has  a monopoly over the most important "ESSENTIAL SERVICE" in this nation period, the communications services, yet it is running it like a runaway freight train bounding on its way to a stock market gold rush with out a thought or worry towards those who may fall under its tracks. Bell runs it cables , and infrastructure over all our nations land and our backyards in most cases without our individual consent as though it were a government owned social service with entitlement to cross over this nations people's private property. And in return for Bell Canada being handed the ability by our government to run its cables over our property,  it thanks us by charging us all twice as much as the new competitors do...

Bells Excuse to the CRTC for limiting and prevent outside competition was False .... Bell told the CRTC and the people of Canada years ago at hearings not to let outside competition into this country , because the lower prices that outsider companies would charge would undermine Bell Canada's ability to provide and maintain the infrastructure  needed to provide service to remote regions of our vast  nation. Meaning that bell needed to maintain its large customer base to pay for the cost of running wires and service to far and remote places in this nation. Bell threatened that if Bell started to lose money because outside companies started charging less and took away Bell's captive costumers, then Bell  would no longer be able to afford to provide service to remote areas or maintain the infrastructure(cables/wires) that is already in place now.  And that was the summary of Bells argument to the CRTC against letting competition into this country, which i myself fell for at the time...That is till years of seeing with my own eyes what bell is really doing.

Everything Bell Canada said to the CRTC years ago is false simply because Bells track record over past years shows Bell hasn't been this self proclaimed great Stuart focused on managing a nations  tele/com infrastructure, as it had claimed to the CRTC that its funds were need for . But instead has been using up its funds in past years not so much for infrastructure in the remote or urban regions, but more for the procurement of media outlets, tv stations, radio stations,  entertainment centres( the Bell Centre) etc... none of which have anything to do with providing remote regional access or infrastructure maintenance at all. Its all shareholder driven and market devouring monopolistic takeover culture  that have been the primary actions taken by Bell that we all have observed over that past years ! ,

link 1 - list of Bell Canada holdings

 

In fact when it comes to actual infrastructure  maintenance, in Toronto our hard wired phone lines  give you nothing but crackling noises. I have friends and relatives across Toronto/GTA who all say the same thing,  the phone is crackling and the old phone lines over their yards have never been touched or maintained by Bell as long as they can remember. If you call Bell to fix the crackling outside line they try to get into your house so they can charge you a 80 dollar repair fee, even though its cause is Bell's old outside wires(i had this happen to me before! ive worked in tele com so i caught the fast one the guy was trying to pull )...

In our Toronto community about two summers ago bell began to install high speed fibre cable over our backyards..  Unfortunately for many neighbours Bell had sold them all  a high speed plan about 4 years prior to any fibre cables being installed in the area! So for about 4 years people were paying the extra money thinking they had high speed fibre when the wires(infrastructure) to carry high speed wasn't there at all for yet another 4years or so !... and our community is not the only one that this has happened to , the news ran a piece about people who were paying for expensive fibre plans when fibre cables were not even there in place to carry the high speed to their communities.

 

Bell Canada's actions over the past years, since that CRTC hearing about opening  up the tele com market in Canada to outside competition, has been not quite like the bill of goods they sold the CRTC back then ,,,, instead of being good Stuarts of the nations essential communications service, they have become one of the biggest, most expensive monopolies in that industry, and have been festering a culture within itself of suspicious sales practices and acquisitions  . Im sure many of you have Bell horror stories too?

 

So why is the prime-minister and the premiers not stepping up during this time of Covid 19 crisis and ordering that bell stop over charging and that it drastically lower its prices, or provide free its "essential" communications services while this nations peoples are struggling just to get by and at their lowest point ? 

 

 If even Dollar stores can offer seniors discounts through out the year in normal times, then why cant Bell Canada offer discounts to Canadians during a pandemic crisis ? ,

Bell has  been handed a great deal of access and wealth on our Canadian soils, but has Bell Canada been a ethically grateful player in return for all that we have provided Bell with, or has Bell Canada  taken advantage of ours and our forefathers Canadian generosity at the end of it all ?...we are treated better by new foreign companies to our country than we are by the one company that uses our own nations name bell "CANADA"... eh !

 

 Some things to think about and respond to

1 - do you think phone service , or internet, or both are essential services

2 -  only during a pandemic or national crisis ,  phone and internet providers should take on a unique role of essential service provider and thus function differently

3 - should government step in and make this type of service (tele/com) accessible to all during crisis like a pandemic

4 - based on Bells weak or false argument put forth to CRTC years ago, and its subsequent transformation into power hungry monopoly that charges more than most people can afford now a days for basic phone service, should the CRTC step in and fully open up the market to outside tele/com companies

5 - Should the CRTC force Bell Canada to sell off all that they acquired since the time of those hearings years ago, as punishment for being a bad and misleading industry player ?

6 - Does the Government of Canada need to intact much stronger anti-monopoly laws in the tele/com industry ?

7 -  Should CRTC make  providers offer a very basic telephone service for free so that even the poor can have the ability to communicate beyond the confines of "covid lock downs"

actually you could post some of these points above as topics unto themselves on these forums. For me they all relate here as a group leading into each other each raising the next concern ..

 

copy past or link this to others around the net, i think this needs to be discussed, by all Canadians .

yours Brett R.