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.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
In all honesty, I can't answer that. I guess we could look into it. I don't know if Sara can allude to that any more than I can, but I'm really not able to comment on it right now.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
My colleague asked some good questions with regard to the placement of towers. In my community—I represent Edmonton—we recently had some towers go up, and they have been concerns to the local community.
Are you finding in rural municipalities that we're seeing a lot more acceptance of these towers or a lot more encouragement of them by both the municipality and community groups as they relate to the final mile?
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Sara, would you like to answer that?
Member, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
It's really not an issue for our communities, so I'll leave that to you.
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Sorry, Sara.
As I stated earlier, it's not an issue for the rural communities. That, I believe, is more of an issue that affects the urban centres. They of course don't like them because they're unsightly. Basically, we have them, especially on the prairies, and I don't think that in rural Ontario it is very different either. In the Maritimes, it would be the same. We have lots of areas. We have farmland. For us, if that tower would basically cover a good part of our municipality, we'd be happy. We'd be able to put another cellphone tower up in conjunction. We could use the same tower. We would be very happy about that. Our members, our farmers, would be really happy about it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
I just want to throw something in here.
Mr. Orb, you mentioned you are currently working on a pilot project. If you have anything that you would like to submit to the committee on any of those pilot projects, that might be helpful to us.
We're going to move to Mr. Sheehan.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you very much for the presentation.
As a former city councillor and a school board trustee, I know the great work that FCM does in thinking about that. We're talking with municipalities now, but in the past and recent history there have been some combined efforts in the MUSH sector—municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals. On the Huron-Superior board that I was on, we created a bit of a network and there was a bit of partnering. Is that still going on, and could you give us examples of where that is happening in Canada?
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
We could give you specific examples, but I can't give them today. I know there are places where that is happening. That is used, I think, in Saskatchewan. Some of the school boards are doing that for distance education. They're partnering with SaskTel to be able to do that. I know that in northern Saskatchewan they're delivering some health care services that way too.
If you need specific examples, we could get them. Our FCM staff will have to look into it and provide them to you.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
That would be very helpful. I know that in my riding of Sault Ste Marie the school board has put an application in to Connect to Innovate. They are working with the Innovation Centre not-for-profit and the city, because up in Goulais River there's a school that has one-fifth the speed of all the other schools in the system. It becomes an issue of fairness and equity when some kids are at a one-fifth disadvantage and there are certain things they can't do. I'm wondering if there are other examples of that out there right now. That would help us in our study.
It leads to my next question. I'm thinking about the private sector now, because we've covered off the non-private. There are so many different poles out there that are held privately by hydro companies and others that are already established in rural and remote Canada. How can we get those private companies to work with municipalities through FCM and through the federal government? Do you have any comments on that?
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
It's not only the role of the provinces. It's also the role of municipal organizations like ours and like Sara's. I think we need to be in contact.
As I mentioned, in our province we have been. I know that in Alberta they have some different models of communities that are working with service providers. Their organization, the AAMDC, has been very vocal about getting those people together. It is something that all of our provincial organizations understand. I think we have to do more work on that and we have to get a little better at it.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
It's perplexing. It raises the question of why that private corporation would be hesitant to partner. Can you shed any light on that?
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
I think in the past they would be hesitant because there wouldn't be much money in it for them. Obviously the money is in the larger urban centres and that's where the low-hanging fruit is, but with these federal programs that we mentioned earlier on, there's some incentive now to do that. I think we're going to see some better Internet service provided into the rural and remote areas.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
We were in Washington a few months ago. We were there to talk about a number of things, including rural broadband. The United States is grappling with the same issue. It's just not Alaska; it's in the Midwest of the United States and all over the place. We sat in on some congressional hearings, and one question that was posed is something that we're grappling with, I think, in our ridings and across this country: should we increase the speeds for people who already have broadband, or should access to broadband for all Canadians be a priority?
What would your preference be?
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Obviously ours is access for all Canadians, absolutely.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
I agree. That kind of gets into the question of speed, because as we get into it, people are saying they want to get higher and higher. However, access for all, I think, is very important.
Thank you.
November 30th, 2017 / 11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
We're going to move to Mr. Eglinski. You have five minutes.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you.
I apologize for being a little late, but I got involved in something.
Thank you for being here, sir. I don't know your name, but I'll ask you a few questions.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
You're a neighbour of mine.
Ray, my area is a pretty well rural area with a number of communities in the 5,000 to 7,000 range, and then a whole bunch of small ones, with lots of farm air.
We're seeing a number of small companies start up and bring in the Internet system, usually through a tower, and then make promises to the clients that they're going to get so many megabytes of service. They keep selling subscriptions to their system to the point where people cannot use their computers, especially in the evening, because the system is so loaded down. Do you find that quite common across Canada where there are these small Internet providers?
Chair, Rural Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Yes, it does happen. We have some clients who don't have access to hardwire to be able to get onto high-speed Internet. They have problems with the satellite delivery because satellites can't provide enough capacity to provide good download speeds. At peak times of the day, which probably would be the early morning or evening when most people are either going to work or coming home from work, the system is not able to keep up. That is a big problem for a business that relies on consistent communication. We know that's an issue all across Canada.
We believe there has to be some kind of regulation on that through the CRTC. They need to be able to regulate some of that. If people are selling subscriptions, they need to be able to deliver what they're selling.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
One of our local counties, Clearwater County, has formed what they call the Clearwater Broadband Foundation. They have a pretty unique idea. They want to run cable through old pipelines that are crisscrossing the whole region. In your opinion, is this feasible?
