Outraged residents demand Prime Minister Trudeau review federal regulators edict forcing their local government to accept Rogers’ false cell tower application.

Earlier this week, residents of Salt Spring Island, B.C. wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau detailing the history related to Rogers application to site a 14 story cell tower in the midst of their residential neighbourhood, 40 metres from the nearest home. Julian Clark, spokesperson for the concerned residents wrote “Rogers’ proposed site for the cell tower construction was not in compliance with the required protocol, and furthermore, had Rogers not falsified their application, that particular site could not have been chosen.”

Mr. Clark then supported this statement by sharing a quote from the local governments’ letter to Rogers on February 14th of this year “By statements made in their application, the Proponents (Rogers and CREST) clearly knew that completion of the draft Model Protocol was required for concurrence. The Proponents (Rogers and CREST) falsely asserted they had fulfilled the protocol, provided inaccurate information, and omitted material information in their application”

Salt Spring Island is governed by the BC governments’ 1974 Islands Trust act which was enacted to “preserve and protect” the Southern Gulf Islands “unique amenities and environment”. The tower site chosen by Rogers is defined by Salt Springs’ local governing body, the Local Trust Committee (LTC), as environmentally sensitive and high in bio-diversity.

The LTC further advised Rogers in their February 14th letter “to indefinitely suspend any development at the proposed site”. Rogers ignored the local governments’ request, citing a May 2022 letter from Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED – the federal regulators overseeing cell tower siting) to the LTC, and began breaking ground and drilling rock in late March. In their May letter ISED indicated they could not support the LTCs’ position as they didn’t see any valid rationale for doing so.

Given the more recent February 14th, comprehensive disclosure of reasons for suspending development, the LTC met with the ISED on March 31st. The LTC questioned the legitimacy of ISEDs’ May letter (as without a dispute being triggered, ISED involvement is not contemplated in the federal regulations), and furthermore explained Rogers application included false assertions, and inaccurate and incomplete statements. Regardless, ISED continue to state the LTC do not have valid reasons for suspending development of the tower.

Clark says “the LTC has now triggered the dispute resolution mechanism contemplated in the federal regulations but, unfortunately, the same regulators that forced the LTC to accept a false application are the people who rule on the dispute.” He further states “I have every confidence that if Prime Minister Trudeau were aware of the injustice perpetrated by Rogers and enabled by a federal regulator, he would take a few minutes to put this right. Please put this matter before the Prime Minister!”