Telecom complaints up nearly 80%, CCTS says

Canada’s Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) says it’s facing an unprecedented surge in complaints.

In an update posted on its website, the CCTS said its 2025-26 complaint period has so far received 53,195 complaints, a 79 per cent increase compared to the previous year. Of that, the commission has accepted 41,235 complaints — 74 per cent more than last year — and reports an 87.2 per cent resolution rate so far.

“This increase reflects unprecedented demand for our impartial, effective and free complaint-resolution services,” the CCTS said, noting that it’s continuing to accept complaints and help resolve them.

However, the commission also warned that the high volume of complaints is causing resolutions to take longer than usual, especially in cases requiring conciliation or investigation.

“As demand continues to increase, processing times may remain longer than usual,” the commission said.

The CCTS says its annual report will offer a fuller picture of the issues customers are facing when it arrives in January 2027. However, rising complaint volumes have been an ongoing problem for a while, with the commission’s mid-year 2026 report also showing a 53 per cent increase in wireless issues. Top complaints include incorrect charges, disclosure issues, service issues and price increases.

Tips to help with complaint process

To help alleviate some of the volume, the CCTS also shared some tips and reminders for Canadians to keep in mind before filing a complaint. For starters, the commission notes that people must try to resolve issues with their carrier first before filing a complaint with the CCTS.

Other tips include clearly explaining the problem and how the provider can resolve it, keeping copies of bills, contracts, chat transcripts, emails, and other documentation, and tracking when you contact your provider and who you speak with. The commission also advises Canadians to participate in “reasonable resolution steps” like troubleshooting or waiting for credits to appear. If all else fails — and importantly, if the issue falls within the commission’s mandate — then people should submit a complaint.

Carriers gutted customer service, outsourced roles

Notably, this comes amid an ongoing increase in issues with Canadian telecom providers, and in particular, Rogers, Bell, and Telus. The Big Three have spent the last few years gutting customer service roles and outsourcing jobs to overseas call centres, making it extremely difficult for Canadians to contact their providers.

Worse, if you actually manage to make it through the multi-hour hold times, getting anything resolved feels next to impossible. Customer service reps are actively incentivized to keep calls short and to sell new products and services, so anyone who needs help fixing an issue has to fight their way through several layers of employees, call transfers, and other mind-numbing bureaucracy — assuming reps don’t just hang up midway through your fourth hour on the phone.

That leaves the CCTS as one of the few recourses available to Canadians for resolving issues with their carriers. However, carriers are actively trying to undermine that too. Telus, for example, wants the CRTC to add additional requirements to filing complaints, like requiring proof that customers raised the issue to level two customer support — a truly Herculean feat.

Elsewhere, providers are asking the CRTC to scrap some of the scant consumer protections that currently exist, from caps on roaming overages to phone locking, and even clawing back sign-up bonuses from customers who cancel early.