CRTC Head Who Had Beers With a Lobbyist Did No Wrong, Ethics Commissioner Says

CRTC Chair Ian Scott in Gatineau, Quebec, on Feb. 18, 2020. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The CEO of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Ian Scott, did not breach the Conflict of Interest Act by sharing beers at a pub with a prominent lobbyist, says Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion.

Scott was seen at an Ottawa pub in December 2019 with Mirko Bibic, who was then CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises and, a month later, would become president and CEO of the telecommunications giant.

“Mr. Scott wrote that he paid for his own drink and Mr. Bibic paid for his,” wrote Dion in his Aug. 24 “Scott Report,” first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

“He wrote that no manner of gifts, advantages, or hospitality was exchanged.”

Scott said that his relationship with Bibic was purely “professional”—despite a calendar entry from the time marking his meeting as a “social” event.

“Mr. Scott wrote that the ’social' aspect of the meeting as used in his calendar entry was intended to reflect the characterization of the meeting as one without any plan to discuss substantive matters relating to broadcasting or telecommunications,” Dion wrote.

“The relationship between Mr. Scott and Mr. Bibic was not one of friendship within the meaning of the Act since it remained exclusively professional despite both having worked in the same industry for over two decades,” he added.

A week before Scott and Bibic’s pub meeting, Bell had filed an application with the CRTC to review and vary a telecom order made in August 2019, Dion wrote in his report.

In May 2021, a CRTC panel—of which Scott was a member—issued a decision changing the 2019 telecom order for which Bell had filed an application.

“Mr. Bibic was characterized in a February 2020 media article as a friend of Mr. Scott’s,” wrote Dion. “I was concerned that, by participating in the May 2021 Telecom Decision, Mr. Scott may have had an opportunity to further the private interests of a friend or to improperly further those of a corporation, whose CEO was a friend.”

Scott defended drinks with the Bell CEO during his testimony at the House of Commons industry committee in February 2022, saying his meetings “are recorded” and “grounded in well-established rules.”

“Presumably your meeting in that bar wasn’t recorded,” said Conservative MP Bernard Généreux.

“I have meetings,” Scott replied.

“This has gotten a lot of attention, but it doesn’t change the circumstances,” he said, adding, “We hold meetings and, as you have said yourself, we follow the rules. They’re reported in my agenda, the parties report them, and we follow the rules.”