It's very serious for rural service right across the country. I have colleagues in Ontario who say the same thing. If you get an hour or so outside of Ottawa, you don't have high-speed and have poor Internet service.
What this really means is that if we can get some allocation to rural areas, both for education and health, and require that the bandwidth be used.... Right now, the big telecoms can buy it, but they don't have to use it; they can set it on the shelf. That's our concern: it sits there not being used.
There are interested parties out there, in both resource development and in agriculture as a whole. If we want this industry to grow in this country.... We're an exporting nation and we have to have the technology available to rural residents, just as we do anywhere else. There have to be some rules put in place saying that the telecoms have to come to the table and use it to be rural providers.
Thank you.