STRAIGHTWRY COLUMN July 22-28

DEFENDING BIG, BAD ROGERS TV

Might one whisper just a word of restraint to Beverley Reade, the lady who should have been christened David and handed a slingshot at the baptismal font, the lady who challenged the mighty Rogers cablevision corporation and won?

The details are as stirring as any Goliath story. Ms. Reade, formerly a deputy debt courts judge, was one of the many people who bought the Rogers high speed cable Internet service. As with many others, hers didn’t work well and when she asked for the promised technical assistance a recorded voice told her that the Rogers people were far too busy to spend time on her.

No doubt almost all the customers who were treated that way just whimpered, as is the Canadian tradition, but not Ms Reade. She stopped paying her Internet service bills and when Rogers sicced a collection agency on her and threatened to ruin her credit and snatch away her cable TV service, she sued.

The judge called the Rogers people’s behavior high handed and contemptuous. The results were a letter of humble apology from John Tory, president and chief executive of Rogers Cablesystems Incorporated, a letter of equally humble apology from Ted Rogers, president and chief executive of Rogers Communications Incorporated and a sum of money to further soothe her.

Naturally there rose the sound cheering from the many who have experienced cable tv companies announcing that they plan to sell us a bunch of TV channels we don’t want and didn’t order and that it’s our responsibility to beat them off if we don’t want to get clobbered.

And yet, let one or two words be uttered on behalf of Mr. Rogers and the monsters of his monstrous coporation.

Ms Reade says the apologies and the money aren’t enough. She is also going to pursue the company through the Canadian Radio and Telecommunication Commission and the federal Competition Bureau.

Dear Jalapeno Lady, just take your money, okay?

Has it never occurred to you how lucky you are that went up against a private company?

Do you think for even one millisecond you could have so challenged the national government, that government we quaintly call our servant but know to be our master?

Can you, in the widest circuits of flights of fancy, imagine Prime Minister Chretien as well as one of his cabinet ministers writing an apology to you for misbehavior on the part of government people? Even less, would your democratically elected government be likely to pay you for your pain, inconvenience or suffering?

Rogers may be high handed and contemptuous, but what large organizations aren’t? Rogers is reachable. As you have shown us, it is not beyond the laws of the land or the dictates of common courtesy. Our rulers are.

Before you rush off to take more revenge, consider what your position would be should you be delinquent, or should some bureaucrat think you have the air of somebody who might be delinquent some day, in paying the Goods and Services Tax.

That bureaucracy recently hurled yet another of its threats at me. Their notice said that I had failed to make my first quarterly return in 2001 and should do so right smartly because within 15 days the department planned to take enforcement measures.

Those measures, Ms Reade, could include seizing my personal property, including my house, to sell them to recover the supposed debt, all without that tiresome necessity of proving that they had any right to any money. The enforcement measures also include overdue interest on the unpaid amount.

This false claim of theirs is a familiar pattern to which I responded in the familiar way. I sent, by expensive registered mail, a photocopy of the First Quarter return which I had mailed, on time, also a photocopy of my cheque in full payment, which they had cashed, on time.

From previous experience, I know that this will shut them up until they make a similar error, which won’t take long. Then the bullying will begin again, and so will my double registered mail expenses.

Apology?

A promise to do better in future?

Before any such things occur, dear lady, they will be holding the Winter Olympics on the south slopes of hell.

Consider this, please before you chase a private company further down the lane with your broomstick. Our most arrogant enemies are the public servants whose salaries we pay.

-30-

Paul St.Pierre

Box 964

Fort Langley, B.C.

604 882 1901

pstpierre@telus.net

pstp3@stardate.bc.ca

pstpierrem@red2000.com.mx