A tale of two commas

This cautionary tale begins with a joke showcased by Lynne Truss in her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves — The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

A panda walks into a café, orders and eats a sandwich, and then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. As the panda is leaving, the confused waiter asks for an explanation. The panda pulls out a wildlife manual in which part of the description for “panda” incorrectly includes a comma: “Eats, shoots and leaves”.

Yourdictionary.com calls commas “arguably the most important grammatical tool the English language has to offer”.

The second comma in this tale serves as one of many painful cases in point.

Canadian media leaders Rogers Communications Inc. and Bell Aliant Regional Communications Income Fund entered into a support structure agreement (SSA) in 2002 for Rogers to lease power poles from Aliant.

It was later reported by The Globe and Mail and other media that Aliant relied on a comma in the SSA to terminate the agreement before the five-year term ended. Aliant also raised the lease rates by almost double based on changes to its separate agreement with the local power corporation and advised Rogers that billing would now be done by that corporation.

Aliant maintained it could terminate the agreement with Rogers at any time with only one year’s notice. Rogers argued the SSA was in effect for the full five-year term.

The comma in question was the last one in this clause: “… shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party”.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled in Aliant’s favour in 2006. Rogers then uncovered the French version of the CRTC-approved standard form on which the SSA was based. The French text was different and the CRTC overturned its decision in 2007, stating “it is appropriate to prefer the French-language version” as that version had only one possible interpretation.

Unfortunately for Rogers, the CRTC also ruled that it had no jurisdiction over power poles based on an earlier Supreme Court of Canada ruling. This left Rogers facing an extra $700,000 in lease costs.

The moral of this tale: when crossing the Ts, watch for commas.