Evidence of meeting #85 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was broadband.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Susan Hart  Director General, Connecting Canadians Branch, Department of Industry
Christopher Seidl  Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Luc Delorme  Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
Earl Dreeshen  Red Deer—Mountain View, CPC
Adam Scott  Acting Director General, Spectrum Licensing Policy Branch, Department of Industry
Andre Arbour  Acting Director, Telecommunications, Internet, Policy Branch, Department of Industry

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

It's your survey report.

Mr. Delorme, does that differ from the work that you do? It's two different sets of statistics.

Noon

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

It's based off the same base data. We have agreements to share our data. The statistical analysis from that report was performed by the CRTC based on their definitions of rural and urban, but in terms of coverage and demographics data, we share the same base layers.

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

You're working with the same fundamental data.

Noon

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

Absolutely.

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

You had given us some specific numbers of10,000 communities, of which 1,000 are urban. Is that correct?

Noon

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

Approximately, yes.

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

We assume those are being taken care of by the market.

Noon

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

Yes. I also want to mention that “community” does not equal “municipality”. The municipality of Ottawa encompasses many communities, some of which, on the far extremes, could be considered part of the municipal border but are still rural communities.

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

Then 1,000 of them are not in your area of concern. Is that fair to say?

Noon

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Noon

Director General, Connecting Canadians Branch, Department of Industry

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

However, 9,000 are, and out of the 9,000, you drop down to 3,700 communities that in my understanding have 400 inhabitants or less. Is that correct?

Noon

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

On average, yes, that's right. Some are smaller and some are bigger, but on average, out of the ones that were eligible, that's about the size they tend to be.

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

Those are the ones that are eligible or those are the ones that are problematic?

Noon

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

That would be the same. The ones that don't have that connection are the ones that were eligible to CTI.

Noon

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

The eligibility is based on not having it and not on the number of people.

12:05 p.m.

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

There was no eligibility that was based on the number of people. In some cases we had some fibre builds that went by communities of 50, and if you happened to be going by it and you could definitely serve it, that's eligible.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

Thanks.

Therefore, it's 3,700 communities, and in this last program you're hoping to cover about 10% of them. Is that right?

12:05 p.m.

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

We were hoping for that. I think we'll exceed that significantly.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

By what percentage?

12:05 p.m.

Director General, Connecting Canadians Branch, Department of Industry

Susan Hart

It's hard to tell at this point, because not everything has been selected. We saw in the Quebec announcement that there are 360 communities, so we can—

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

Out of 3,700 communities pan-Canadian, in Quebec alone we're going to hit 360?

12:05 p.m.

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

In all of Canada, there are 3,700 such communities. According to the announcement, however, this will help 360 Quebec communities. So this is an important factor.

As I understand it, not all the money will be distributed in Quebec. Some will go to others as well.

12:05 p.m.

Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry

Luc Delorme

That is right.