Project updates

ACT researchers were invited by the British Columbia government to submit an intervention as part of the province’s public engagement and legislative review to identify ways to improve cell phone contract and billing transparency. The ACT report, titled “Fair Sales Practices and Affordable Services: The Cell Phone Needs of Canadian Seniors,” emphasizes the need for challenging the current telecommunication landscape, ending aggressive and misleading sales practices, and providing affordable mobile services to all Canadians.

Complaints from Canadians about the practices of phone, television and internet providers have increased by 73% in the last year. Media reports relaying situations of abuse, including tactics of overselling and upselling, are also multiplying. Who, exactly, is winning from a system that profits from abusive practices and consumer confusion?

As ACT’s Kim Sawchuk, Constance Lafontaine and Kendra Besanger recently argued in an op-ed published in the Montreal Gazette, seniors, especially those living their later years in situations of financial precarity, are placed at a marked disadvantage.

In collaboration with the Public Interest and Advocacy Centre (PIAC), ACT has set up a phone line to collect stories from older Canadians about dealing with service providers. Call us at 1-800-835-1979 and leave us a short message as well as contact information so we may call you back.