Cope: "I haven't seen a word about consumers getting hurt other than from competitors. You know who controls that? They do."
Cope: "I don’t understand how the consumer gets hurt. We offer our services, that’s competition."
Cope: "This isn't a sales pitch ...happiest people in world today are our competitors."
Cope: "There is this general conclusion that if something benefits Bell then it can't benefit Canadians. I don’t understand that."
Cope: I remember going home Friday of the hearing saying "market share sure isn't an issue because nobody brought it up."
Cope: "By the way, every single financial analyst in the country wrote they were shocked and surprised at this decision."
Cope on Blais: "I don't know the guy... the first time I met him I was appearing before him at a panel."
Cope: "If my competitors are happy, how can that be good for cosumers? That's impossible, it doesn't even make any sense."
Cope: "We are doing everything we can with Astral to get this deal put back. If cabinet sees it our way we'll get it back for shareholders."
Cope: "If cabinet studies this, they are going to have many many questions."
Cope: "We didn't roll the dice to see if we could executive a high-risk transaction. There were rules."
Cope on what he'd do different: "I guess we shouldn't have assumed the rules were the rules. They changed the rules. They were torqued."
Cope: "We are pursuing every avenue to get transaction closed. Financial markets see a low probability. We'll see what cabinet concludes."
Cope: "My competitors are happy. I am not happy."
Cope on Consumer Code on Wireless: "Can someone please report that we ASKED for that to be done?"
We are about to interview BCE Inc. CEO George Cope. Will tweet as warranted.