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.
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.
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
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.
Liberal
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
Absolutely.
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?
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
Approximately, yes.
Liberal
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
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.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Then 1,000 of them are not in your area of concern. Is that fair to say?
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
Yes.
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?
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
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.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Those are the ones that are eligible or those are the ones that are problematic?
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
That would be the same. The ones that don't have that connection are the ones that were eligible to CTI.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
The eligibility is based on not having it and not on the number of people.
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
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.
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?
November 23rd, 2017 / 12:05 p.m.
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
We were hoping for that. I think we'll exceed that significantly.
Director General, Connecting Canadians Branch, Department of Industry
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—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Out of 3,700 communities pan-Canadian, in Quebec alone we're going to hit 360?
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
Yes.
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.
Acting Director, Connecting Canadians Branch, Program and Engineering, Department of Industry
That is right.