Amid growing telecom wait times and rising frustration from Canadians, a new petition wants the government to establish customer service access standards like maximum hold times.
A House of Commons petition filed this month asks Parliament to tell the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to “establish a clear, measurable and enforceable customer-service access standard for telecommunications providers.”
The petition also calls for establishing a “maximum 10-minute telephone hold time for customers seeking access to human customer service,” and asks the CRTC to determine how to measure hold times as well as to create “reasonable exceptions” to the rule.
Elsewhere, the petition says the customer service standards should require access to a human representative instead of connecting to automated systems. Specifically, the human representative should be able to start helping with the customer’s concern to prevent unnecessary transfers or further waiting.
Finally, and perhaps most crucially, the petition seeks the creation of “meaningful and proportional consequences for providers that persistently fail.”
At the time of writing, the petition had about 50 signatures. While not many, it’s worth noting the creator also made a similar Change.org petition that received nearly 1,200 signatures. The House of Commons petition closes on Nov. 26, 2026 at 1:03 p.m. ET.
Service standards a partial fix
The idea of customer service standards isn’t exactly new. Other countries have implemented similar rules. Spain, for example, implemented rules requiring telecoms and other large companies to answer customer calls within three minutes 95 per cent of the time.
Similar rules could help address a growing service problem with Canada’s biggest telecoms. It’s increasingly difficult for Canadians to contact their providers, with many reporting multi-hour wait times. When people do eventually get through, they’re often forced to navigate several hurdles like automated systems and transfers. And those who manage to make it to a real person might not even get the help they need, as customer service reps are often incentivized to keep calls short and to sell new products, leading to a lack of help or even reps hanging up on people.
And we can see this growing trend reflected in other places. Canada’s Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS), for example, says telecom complaints are up nearly 80 per cent over last year.
However, customer service standards might only address part of the problem. The other issue behind rising complaints is the industry’s incessant cutting and outsourcing of customer service roles. Any customer service standards rules should also address this practice, such as by requiring Canadian-based support workers. Doing so would also benefit Canada’s national security by limiting the amount of telecom information, as well as personal and financial information, that’s shared outside of the country.
Source: Our Commons Via: Reddit, Change.org
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