Rogers Becomes a Tire Fire Through Customer Complaints and Job Cuts
Explosion in ombudsman issues plus employee and capital reductions puts spotlight on federal government's "legally binding" merger commitments
If Rogers were a train, it would be crazy and it would be going off the rails.
The latest customer complaint numbers, released today by the telecom industry ombudsman, show that the public’s frustration with the company is boiling over – a mounting issue on top of additional news this week that it is eliminating a significant number of employees and slashing capital spending.
Total complaints accepted in the second half of 2025 by the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) for Rogers-Shaw climbed to 6,583, a 95-per-cent jump over a year ago. That doesn’t include the company’s Fido sub-brand, where complaints increased a whopping 155 per cent to 2,080 over the same time frame.
Including Fido, Rogers accounted for 44 per cent of all complaints accepted, which were up a dramatic 61 per cent to 19,157 total. Telus placed second at 16 per cent and Bell third at 13 per cent. The mid-year numbers come on top of three previous annual CCTS reports that showed successive new record highs in overall customer complaints.
“The continued increase in complaint volumes is significant and reflects the importance of having a trusted, independent organization that Canadians can turn to when concerns remain unresolved,” said CCTS commissioner and chief executive Josée Bidal Thibault in a release.
Consumer advocates are pointing the finger at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which oversees the CCTS, for failing to follow through on a review of the various codes of conduct that telecom providers must abide by.
“Until clear regulatory action is taken to address the gap between what consumers expect to pay and what they are actually charged, we are unlikely to see a dip in these complaint numbers,” says Tahira Dawood, acting general counsel at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
“This long-awaited review is still not in effect, and consumers have no clarity as to when this review will happen.”
Job and Network Cuts
The CCTS figures come a week after Rogers announced it was slashing infrastructure investment by 30 per cent and two days after The Globe and Mail reported that it is offering voluntary departure packages to half of its 22,000 employees (an additional 3,000 working for the company’s majority owned Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment are not affected).
The company did not say whether it had a reduction target, though the newspaper noted that only a minority of employees who are offered a buyout typically accept it.
Rogers did not respond to a request for comment on the customer complaint numbers, but on the jobs report, a spokesperson told the Globe that, “We are taking steps to adjust our cost structure to reflect the business realities of the current environment.”
The developments put the spotlight back on the federal government, which approved Rogers’ controversial $26 billion acquisition of fellow cable giant Shaw in 2023 and which on Tuesday announced a whole-of-government competition initiative in its spring economic update.
Despite objections at the time from the Competition Bureau and the government’s own Industry Committee, then-Minister of Innovation Science and Economic Development François-Philippe Champagne allowed the Shaw deal to go ahead in exchange for “legally binding commitments” from Rogers and Quebec’s Videotron.
Those commitments included infrastructure spending, maintaining employee numbers and wireless pricing benchmarks. Champagne – who is now the Finance Minister – said the government would watch the companies “like a hawk” to ensure compliance:
ISED did not respond to a request for comment on whether the government plans to enforce those commitments.
In the government’s spring economic update on Tuesday, Champagne introduced a plan that will:
“Ensure that existing and future policies across the federal government prioritise the promotion of competition and limit to the extent possible the potential negative impacts on competition that can, often inadvertently, stem from government policies. The plan will focus on removing inefficient government policies that impede competition arising from regulation, procurement, and industrial support. The Minister of Finance and National Revenue will provide further information on this initiative in the coming months.”
Competition advocates support the whole-of-government approach in theory but want to see further details. Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, points to last week’s CRTC ruling that leaves wholesale internet rates high – and which benefits big telecom companies including Rogers – as an example of an anti-competitive decision by a government agency.
“We’ve seen progress on wireless pricing in the last two years following the agreements struck between Rogers and Quebecor, but is this progress going to be durable or go the way of the job commitments that came out of the [Shaw] merger?” he says..
“Paired with the decision out last week from the CRTC on fibre wholesale pricing, the outlook is not encouraging for consumers looking for relief on wireless or home internet bills.”
While Rogers cited a “punitive” regulatory environment as the reason for slashing network investment, the competing companies who depend most on wholesale access say the CRTC continues to treat Canada’s large companies favourably. Last week’s ruling effectively represents, “the end of independent internet competition for consumers in Canada,” according to the Competitive Network Operators of Canada.
Sports Monopoly and Political Ties
Rogers also last week confirmed that it is planning to expand into the unregulated sports market by acquiring the remaining 25 per cent of MLSE that it does not own from businessman Larry Tanenbaum.
The acquisition would strengthen the company’s existing monopoly over major sports in Toronto – where it owns the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Blue Jays, Toronto Football Club and others, plus the Rogers Centre and Scotiabank Arena. So far, Rogers’ position in Toronto sports has not attracted any government or regulatory attention.
Champagne, who announced the spring update on Tuesday, replaced Navdeep Bains in 2021 as the head of ISED. Bains, who cited a desire to spend more time with his family as the reason for leaving government, then joined CIBC as vice-chair of global investment banking before ultimately ending up as chief corporate affairs officer at Rogers in 2023.
Rogers recently announced that Bains is stepping down from his role as of May 8, after which he is widely expected to run for leadership of the Ontario Liberal party.
The currently leaderless provincial Liberals this week pulled even in committed voter intentions following Conservative Premier Doug Ford’s recent attempt to buy a private jet, with the parties polling at 36 per cent and 37 per cent respectively.
Concerns about Rogers’ ties to government have been raised before. As then-federal NDP Industry critic Brian Masse said at the time of Bains’ new job that, “This hiring raises questions, especially after the government green-lit the Rogers-Shaw merger, benefiting Rogers at the expense of Canadian consumers.”