Evidence of meeting #87 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 communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Is Clearwater close to Fort McMurray?
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
No, Clearwater is between Edmonton and Calgary, just up against the slopes of the Rockies. It's by Rocky Mountain House, west of Red Deer by 60 miles or so.
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
It's an interesting concept for sure. I'm not able to answer that, because it's a pretty technical question, but the idea is kind of appealing. I think any way service could be delivered has to be looked at. Obviously there are pipelines. I know there are pipelines across the country that are not being used. Some of them have been set aside. If the companies think that using them could be feasible, I don't see why not.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
I have a lot of counties asking about broadband. In your travels and movements around the country and with your knowledge of these systems, do you have any innovative solutions that you've seen other organizations use?
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Whenever I go to Ottawa, I meet with some of the Ontario municipalities. I think AMO has really been active on this file. They have some really good examples of companies that have come together with the municipalities. We can provide you some of that information. I know that in Alberta they're really active as well. When I was at the AAMDC conference last fall, there was quite a discussion about the different ways of delivering services there. Alberta has some unique ways of doing that. You may know some of them, but I think they do vary across the country.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Are we realistic in saying that we could provide broadband to everyone in Canada?
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
I can answer it, and I'll let Sara answer as well.
I think we can do it, but it will take more money and some more time.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much. That's the question, isn't it?
Now we're going to move to Mr. Longfield. You have five minutes.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you for this discussion this morning.
Mr. Orb, you mentioned the role of co-ops. This morning, I met with Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada and we talked about the CCIF fund. Looking at partnering with the federal government, working with FCM, could you expand on the role that co-ops have played in your area or through FCM? As we put our report together, we're going to be looking at the possible partnerships that the federal government might consider.
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
FCM could provide some stats on that. I'm not able to tell you specifically the ones that have been involved, but I know they have been. I know some of that's being taken up in Alberta. That's what I made reference to. There are some counties that have done that. We could provide some of that information. It might take us a bit of time to get the information from the Alberta association, but we certainly could provide that to you.
That is a really good way to effectively spend some of the money that's available through the federal programs.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
We're always looking for matching partners. There may be a similar question around Community Futures. I'm not sure. I know they've been across Canada and they work in small communities. They deliver a lot of different types of programs. Is Community Futures another possible avenue that we could be exploring?
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Yes, I don't see why not. We should work with anybody who's available to enhance economic development. That's definitely the direction we want to go in.
Sara, if you want to comment, go ahead.
11:50 a.m.
Member, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Certainly Community Futures has been very active in the north and is very well received. It has the opportunity to bring a lot of different types of partners together.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
The thing about co-ops and Community Futures is that they bring people from the community who have experience in the community. They know the community at the grassroots level in a way that would be very beneficial, I think, if we're trying to get to the last mile.
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
That's a very good statement.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Great. Thank you.
I'm going to share my remaining time with Mr. Bossio. He has lots of questions.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
We have all seen the graphs and maps that show that we have 99% coverage of one to five megabits across the country. Would you say that's realistic?
11:50 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
That is a loaded question, Mr. Bossio—not that I'm surprised, because I know you know the detail a lot more than we do.
I'm not saying we disagree with that statistic, but we're looking at doing some more research on it. Just in Saskatchewan, we're looking, as I mentioned, at doing each municipality. We're looking at each rural municipality to see if that's correct.
That number might not be quite correct because of the fact that there are dead spots that CRTC may not exactly know about. They got some of that information from SaskTel, but when we provide the information to SaskTel now, they're saying, “We didn't know that was a dead spot.” We need to do some more research on that. Sara may be able to answer the question—
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
If I could take it in a different direction.... I apologize, but I don't have a lot of time.
Have you heard of CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority?
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
They're an organization that has been measuring.... They register a lot of the Internet addresses and they also take a look at devising detailed data on Internet speeds and capacity. One of the major complaints that CIRA has had is with regard to a lot of these studies that are done on congestion. Even when you go to www.speedtest.net, they don't look at congestion, complex traffic routes, other network dynamics, latency, or any of these things when they're looking to deliver one to five megabits of speed. Any of us who have broadband Internet recognize that, for one, broadband isn't defined by five megabits, and two, most of the time, they don't deliver on what they're saying.
CIRA has been going to a number of municipalities to help them fund these tests so that each municipality can determine within their own community exactly where they have and don't have Internet, and the exact speeds that people are experiencing, because they test it on an ongoing basis. It's not just one click, it does the test, and then it's done.
Would you agree that this would be a great avenue for all municipalities to take? They would be able to provide the data themselves and say they've done this and understand totally what the coverage is within their communities.
11:55 a.m.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Yes, absolutely. I'll let Sara answer this one as well.