The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that the CRTC is looking into the rates for phone calls at correctional facilities across the country, spurred by high long-distance charges that families of inmates at Ontario jails had to pay for years. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Globe says the proposed class-action lawsuit against the province and Bell, which ran the phone system in the province's jails from 2013 to 2021, alleges that the charges were exorbitant, with a flat rate of $1 for local calls and about $1 per minute plus a $2.50 connection fee for long-distance calls. One of the lead plaintiffs in the proposed class action had some monthly phone bills of more than $1,000 from the collect calls he received while his son was in solitary confinement, he wrote in an affidavit. Bell Canada made more than $64-million in gross revenues from such calls over that time period and gave nearly $39-million of that to the province as commission. The lawsuit has been on a long journey through the courts, to the CRTC, and perhaps now back to the courts. The CRTC decided in December that it does not have jurisdiction over that specific case, but now says it is looking at whether "further action ... may be required."