Caught between . . .

. . . a rock and a hard place is Ontario’s aggregate industry. Business is booming But it’s no small matter that the public sees the industry as the pits By David Bruser

From this moonscape, carved 27 metres into the ground, springs the lifeblood of the GTA development boom.

At one end of this white, dusty 232- hectare hole in the ground, front-end loaders lift blasted rock into massive million- dollar dump trucks. The trucks rumble to the other end, where a crusher churns the rocks, breaking down the limestone and feeding a warren of conveyor belts that feed still more crushers and sieves that continually make and separate stones of different sizes. The din of machinery is ceaseless, the movement relentless. For 16 hours each day, dump trucks, each carrying 100 tonnes of blasted rock, continually haul to the crusher.

This is Lafarge Corp.’ s flagship Ontario limestone quarry in Dundas, third biggest in the province, according to an industry publication. Some of Canada’s biggest quarries and gravel pits pock the land west and north of Toronto, and close to the GTA municipalities that need the sand and rock for roads and buildings.

“ To simplify our business, we make small rocks out of big rocks. But, I mean, that’s the extreme simplicity,” says Lafarge plant manager Ron Graham.

Yet Lafarge and other major producers have never felt more misunderstood.

“ We like to say that it’s one of the commodities least understood by the general public while at the same time one of the most essential to the quality of life that we enjoy as Ontarians,” said Carol Hochu, president of the Mississauga- based Aggregate Producers’ Association of Ontario ( APAO). Hochu, who once worked in public relations for a major tobacco company, admits she likes taking on industries with “ challenging profiles.” This year, the APAO has stepped up its public relations efforts, and this month will run ads in newspapers that underscore the need for aggregates. The ad, which also appeared in June, depicts a couple with their newborn son, and reads, “ In the first year he’ll need 2,000 diapers, 225 litres of milk and 14 tonnes of aggregate.”

Fourteen tonnes is the per capita average of how much sand, stone and gravel Ontarians consume each year, according to the industry.

“ We’re trying to see if we can

8 press release it calls Bell Digital Voice a “ telephone service with advanced capabilities” where “consumers can keep their current phone number and use all existing phone jacks and handsets in their home.” And the service can be activated with the flick of a switch — all the complexity is hidden from the customer. Furthermore, no Internet service is required. Soon after Bell’s announcement, CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen told the Star he was pleased to see Bell recognizing that VoIP is, well, just another type of local phone service after all.

Yet Bell and the other big phone carriers continue to call the CRTC’s decision unfair and “ out of touch” with the technology and the new market environment.

Bell, with a straight face, continues to say one thing to consumers — that its VoIP product is a local phone service — and the opposite to the regulator — that VoIP isn’t a local phone service. Which is it?

In the meantime, no evidence has emerged that Bell or technological innovation is being held back by the regulation of VoIP. The reality is that the CRTC has loosened all sorts of rules — on bundling, on marketing, on filing for price tariffs — to give Bell more flexibility to compete. The commission is also working to establish a timeline and mechanism for completely doing away with price regulation in the local phone market.

This leads to the obvious question: What is Bell really complaining about? What’s wrong or broken with the current rules? CRTC commissioner Stuart Langford, responding last month to BCE- controlled Aliant Telecom Inc. during a hearing into local phone pricing, summed up the situation quite nicely: “ It just seems to me you want it easier.”

If only Bell invested as much money in customer service as it does on regulatory theatrics and cat- fights with the CRTC. You may recall earlier this year when Bell acquired full control of its technical services provider, Entourage Technology Solutions Inc., that does work in customers’ homes. A vice- president at Bell told me over lunch one day that Bell decided to take over Entourage because it wanted customer service to play a more significant role within its operations. Services are more complex and there are more products to support, he said, adding that Bell needed to do customer service better — or else.

I think the “ or else” part is happening, as complaints continue to roll into the Star from readers who say Bell is doing a horrible job of providing service. For example the Star’s own George Gamester, recently retired, is going through “ Bell Hell.” Gamester knew he would be moving last month and, wanting to be sure his new phone line was activated by the time he moved in, he gave Bell Canada two weeks notice. But the line was dead upon arrival. A few days later he got a message from Bell, presumably on his cellphone, saying that service couldn’t possibly be connected before Nov. 1.

“ This really is a knockout blow to find out they can’t help us until Nov. 1,” said Gamester, who is now looking at using Rogers’ new phone- over- cable service.

It’s not regulation that’s holding back Bell Canada, nor is regulation stifling innovation in this country. Bell is holding back Bell. The company will thrive or fail on the back of customer service, and not by how much it lobbies Ottawa for another scrap of favourable policy. Blaming the CRTC may be fashionable these days, but in this case it simply doesn’t hold up. Spectrum reports on telecommunications issues, every second Monday in Business. Reach Tyler Hamilton at thamilt@thestar.ca