The cell phone reception in Village Bay Lake is sketchy.  Up until this summer, the little Quadra Island community’s only reliable telephone access was a pay phone in the Village Bay Lake parking area. Then TELUS removed it. 

When Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney raised this issue at the recent SRD Board meeting, it turned out she was not the only Director dealing with the problems resulting from TELUS withdrawing pay phones.

On August 29, 2024, Gloria Heisterman from the Village Bay Lake Family Water Recreation Society wrote Director Mawhinney, “We are very concerned about the lack of telephone access in the event of an emergency. Cell service is sketchy and the rare spots that we need to drive to for cell coverage are not dependable. We would appreciate it if you could please look into this matter on our behalf. We understand there is the possibility of having a booster put in to replace the phone booth.”

On Wednesday October 30, Director Mawhinney moved, “That a report with options  for providing reliable telephone service to the Village Bay Lakes area on Quadra Island be prepared for consideration by the Electoral Area Services Committee, including, if possible, the reinstatement of the recently discontinued TELUS payphone service.”

Campbell River Director Susan Sinnott responded, “I’m just curious.  I’m not sure what the underlying community group had done in terms of making inquiries to tell us and whether they had any information as to the regulatory authority that TELUS has for reducing service. Having been in the telephone business for years myself, I know they’re highly regulated and there’d probably be some CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) decisions on decommissioning of pay phones.  Do we know anything?”

Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch explained, “TELUS has done this in a couple other communities, and I don’t know if there’s any regulations to force them to keep the phones active but with community pushback,  I believe they kept the phones there. They didn’t  remove them. We’ll look into if there’s a requirement for them to keep it. They haven’t really given communities heads up.  These have come forward when the community realizes that the phones are being removed . We’ll see if we can advocate in any way to have the phones either stay there or being reinstated.”

Director Sinnott: “From my experience, anything that you do with a regulated telco,  if you copy the commission who regulates them, you’ll get an immediate reply. Just as a tip.”  

At that point Mayor Julie Colborne of Zeballos stated, “We’ve been fighting this fight for a very long time. We have payphones in the community, and they’ve continuously put a notification on the payphone, not notified the local government that they’re going to take them out.  In a space like ours where there are quite often power outages, there’s no cell service, the WiFi goes down: these are key safety considerations to have. As far out as Village Bay is, and as far out as we are, it’s a real safety concern.”  

“Any advocacy that you do, if you could let us know, that would be great. We’re in the same kind of situation.” 

Speaking as the mayor of Sayward, Chair Mark Baker added that his community has also been going through this problem:

“So far we’ve been successful in lobbying for the Roberts Lake phone. So far we’ve been successful in having it remain. They’re talking about taking out the pay phone and having a 911 service there. However, having a 911 service doesn’t help when people just need to call out.”

“But  squeaky wheel:  Okay.  All in favor.  Opposed?  Seeing none, motion is carried.”

SRD staff will prepare a report on this matter.

Links of Interest:

• The TELUS website
• File a Complaint with the CRTC
• Articles about, or mentioning, opposition to the TELUS towers on Cortes and Quadra Islands
• Other Articles about, or mentioning, TELUS

Top image credit: Village Bay Road on Quadra Island – courtesy Google Maps

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