Toronto – Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory is suggesting he could run government better because he once ran a cable TV company, but a lot of people will doubt it.
Many have had problems with TV, phone and Internet services and will side with New Democrat House leader Peter Kormos, who criticized them in the legislature.
Kormos first took a shot at cable TV and specifically the company Tory ran. The Conservative leader was president and chief executive officer of Rogers Cable TV Inc., which serves much of the Toronto area, and has been saying the province needs business experience he could bring.
Kormos, a lawyer, said he receives cable TV through Rogers and "there are no good stories" about it.
He said often during his favorite program, Law and Order, just when the culprit is about to confess, a box that seems to connect the TV to the cable collapses and someone has to reset it.
This never happens, he said, during rinky-dink programs no one cares about, or at 4 am when everyone is sleeping, but "right when Mariska Hargitay has got the accused in the interrogation room and he’s ready to spill, and all of a sudden — a grey screen."
Kormos said viewers who phone Rogers first are kept waiting 10 or 15 minutes, if they are lucky, and, if they get through, fortunate to be kept on the line.
They are told they can reset their TVs simply by crawling behind the TV set, unplugging a box and following a series of procedures. Kormos said he responds he did not screw up the TV, Rogers did, and he pays rent, so Rogers should fix it, and Rogers inevitably hangs up on him. He added Tory would do himself a favor if he avoided suggesting he will make Ontario run like Rogers, because it is the most customer-unfriendly operation he knows.
Conservative finance critic Tim Hudak interjected Bell Canada might compete in this regard and prompted Kormos to describe his misfortunes with that phone and Internet giant.
Kormos said currently he is trying to upgrade his Internet service from dial-up to high-speed and Rogers was not on his short list to do it.
So he called Bell and it put him on hold for 15 minutes and serenaded him with Muzak, then disconnected, and he called again and was on hold and given Muzak for another 15 minutes.
He was eventually on the phone two-and-a-half hours and talking mostly to a service rep in New Delhi, and understands and appreciates people in all parts of the world need jobs.
But he still was puzzled Bell Canada runs advertisements with singing, dancing beavers to emphasize how Canadian it is and he was ordering its Internet service from someone in India.
He then waited a week for a modem that did not arrive and called Bell again and a representative in Oshawa explained he had not been sent a modem because he had never been hooked up to the Bell high-speed Internet, and he had to go through the whole process again.
Even when he received the Bell modem and hooked it up, it did not work and he found he needed filters on his phone lines and Bell provides them for cable hookups, but owners of wall phones, like himself, have to go to its website and order wall phone filters.
When he went to the Bell website, he could not find how to obtain a wall filter, so he now has no e-mail, his wall phone is on his kitchen floor, and he phoned Bell and it has assured him the filter is in the mail.
Kormos said cable TV and phone companies should be required by law to provide more efficient services. Voters in an election also may not be all that impressed to find one leader is a guy who ran a cable company.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
