Two of Canada’s biggest telecom providers are raising the fees they charge customers when they use their devices outside of Canada.
Starting March 8, Telus will charge customers $14 a day when they roam on their devices in the United States, and $16 a day when they do so internationally. That’s an increase from $12 and $15, respectively. Customers of the Telus-owned discount brand Koodo will see a similar fee hike.
Rival Bell is making a similar move starting the following day, raising its U.S. roaming rate from $12 to $13, and going from $15 to $16 internationally. Those increases will also be in effect at Bell-owned subsidiaries including Virgin Mobile.
There’s no indication that Rogers has similar plans to raise roaming rates, but as it stands, customers at Rogers and its flanker brands including Chatr and Fido pay $12 to roam in the U.S. and $15 internationally.
CBC News reached out for comment to all three companies for this story, asking for an explanation for the move.
A spokesperson for Telus said the company needed more time to respond.
Bell cited Statistics Canada data showing that overall wireless prices have declined in the past year, despite “price increases from our suppliers” and “increasing costs to our business,” without elaborating.
Rogers outlined the company’s roaming rates, but declined comment as to whether they had increased recently or were about to.
High prices
Canadians pay some of the highest telecom bills in the world, according to numerousinternationalreports. Multiple federal governments have pressured providers to bring prices down, especially for basic plans with limited data, and while official data shows wireless prices have come down by some metrics, that’s not the case for high-end packages.
A recent report by CBC’s consumer affairs program Marketplace found that, on average, Canadians pay seven times more for a gigabyte of data than people in Australia, 25 times more than people in Ireland and France, and 1,000 times more than people in Finland.
Commuters use their mobile phones near St. Pancras International railway station in London in February 2019. Europeans are protected from high roaming rates, but that’s not the case for Canadians. (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg)
Wall Communications Inc. publishes an annual report on Canadian telecom services and, while this year’s version has not yet been released, on the whole company founder Gerry Wall says the public perception that wireless prices keep going up is unfair, as providers have created many more low-cost plans targeting basic users.
“At the very, very low level — I think you can say it’s relatively affordable in Canada,” he said. “It’s when you get up into sort of the mid-level and the higher-level plans that Canada doesn’t look as good.”
A service such as roaming is one of those high-level perks, and prices are going up because consumers have shown that they want that service, Wall says.
“When I look at [those companies’] annual reports … they do point to the fact that that people are traveling a lot more,” he said.
“If you look back three or four years, all the Big Three were charging considerably lower per-day roaming fees for Canada and U.S. … I expect it goes up every year and it will continue as traveling continues.”
Wireless mobile plan costs around the world
Cellphone users in Ireland, France and Australia react to cost-per-gigabyte price differences in Canada.
Last summer, the European Union passed a law which will ensure that cellphone customers in the EU are entitled to the same quality and price for wireless service when they travel in Europe as they get from their domestic carriers.
But Canadian wireless users have no such legal protection.
Canada’s telecom providers spend billions of dollars every year to grow, maintain and improve their networks, expenditures that have made the country’s wireless networks, on the whole, more robust than those in other countries. Cellular users bear the brunt of those costs and improvements in higher bills, but none of those costly infrastructure expenses — on things like cellphone towers and new spectrum — are a factor for roaming internationally, when calls piggyback on existing networks for a small fee.
Keldon Bester, an analyst on competition policy and co-founder of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, says it’s hard to know if the carriers are facing some sort of cost increase that would justify the rise in roaming rates, since the deals that they sign with their international partners are a closely guarded secret.
“[They can say] ‘Our partners are are demanding this of us and and we’re trying our best but we can’t really do anything,'” said Bester, “but because we don’t have access to these roaming agreements we really can’t test the validity of that.”
He says it’s not hard to imagine that the major telecom providers may see roaming costs as a way to boost revenue without as much of the scrutiny they face for their domestic plans.
“It’s a situation where consumers have even fewer options than they might domestically,” he said. “It’s like buying food at a sports arena — they’ve got you … your options are really limited, so there’s an opportunity to squeeze more out of the consumer.”
Janine Rogan has felt that squeeze first hand.
On a recent trip to Mexico, she was hit by a roaming charge of more than $100 from her telecom provider, Telus. “From a consumer perspective kind of feels like price gouging,” she said. “They’re just trying to make every possible dollar they can off of us.”
She has plans to travel to Europe this summer, and given her recent experience, she says there’s no way she will use her phone normally while she’s there, and will instead get a short-term phone plan from a local provider for a fraction of the cost.
“It’s always amazed me how cheap it is to get a SIM card over there and just pop it in while you’re traveling,” she says. “To see that they’re not allowing roaming charges while Canada’s increasing them just makes the average person’s phone bill go up [by] an exorbitant amount that really isn’t necessary.”
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
