July 14, 2008

Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Municipalities want cable, phone firms to share road repair costs

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

The more money municipalities spend on repairs to roads caused by private phone and cable companies such as Rogers, Bell and Shaw, the less money there is ultimately for construction opportunities, industry officials say.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) recently commissioned a study that found Canadian taxpayers have been left with a $646-million bill for road repairs because of network expansion by private phone and cable companies.

“Our issue is not with the telecommunications companies, it is with successive federal governments that have swept this problem under the rug,” said Jean Perrault, president of FCM and mayor of Sherbrooke, Que.

“We are calling on the current government to break with the past and fix the problem. If it doesn’t, it will be telling Canadians that their property taxes should be subsidizing profitable telecommunications companies.”

Property tax payers are losing $148 per metre in unrecovered costs for expanded or upgraded telecommunications equipment within municipal roadways, according to the report.

This type of excess demand on municipal coffers eventually hurts construction, said the Canadian Construction Association.

“Given the financial strain municipalities are facing for their primary infrastructure needs, having any pressure removed such as that created by telecom companies would be beneficial,” said Jeff Morrison, director of government relations and public affairs at CCA.

FCM estimated that taxpayers are shelling out $107 million every year for road repairs following work done by telecommunications companies.

“The roots of the problem are entangled in century-old legislation whose right-of-way (ROW) provisions were not substantially changed when a new Telecommunications Act was adopted in 1993,” the study states.

A municipality’s lack of control on public ROWs and its ability to recoup costs needs to be addressed, says Frank Zechner, executive director of the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association.

“Municipalities are left trying to stretch their dollars — there should be appropriate compensation,” said Zechner.

“Companies like Rogers, Bell and Shaw are all private and they are not paying for the stress caused on public right-of-ways.”

The report also illustrated the lack of control municipalities have to manage roads in the public interest, notes Zechner.

Wheatland County, Alberta, a community with more than 3,000 kilometres of roads and approximately 9,000 residents, has a policy requiring utilities using public ROWs to register their lines and equipment with Alberta One Call.

Membership with the call centre is a condition of access to public ROWs.

However, Shaw Cablesystems, according to the report, deemed the requirement unreasonable, stating its own locate service was just as effective.

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission granted Shaw access and did not require it to join Alberta One Call.

“As soon as you endorse another call centre, you are eliminating the concept of a one-call service in order to get a locate,” said Zechner.

“This lack of one-call legislation or standards at the federal level is a major concern to all excavators including road builders, home builders and sewer and watermain contractors.”

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