When Canada’s chief telecom regulator Ian Scott met with Mirko Bibic of Bell Canada at an Ottawa pub in 2019, they were just two friends sharing a beer, Scott told the Toronto Star. The subject of broadcasting came up, so Bibic (then Bell’s COO and now its CEO) recorded it as a lobbying meeting, Scott said, but it had no effect on a later CRTC self-reversal on wholesale internet rates that favoured large telcos. (Toronto Star)

Talking point: TekSavvy, the small internet provider most vocal about the CRTC’s decision, reacted volcanically to Scott’s interview with the Star: “It’s exactly what lobbying and integrity rules are supposed to protect us from,” TekSavvy vice-president Andy Kaplan-Myrth tweeted. Scott asserted no rule was broken because “at no time did I have a discussion with Bell about a file I have in front of us. I don’t. I never have. And I never will.” The incident underscores how sometimes, when it comes to maintaining faith in the rules and the people who set and enforce them, the problem isn’t in rule-breaking, it’s in what the rules allow.