Evidence of meeting #13 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was internet.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you very much.
We will begin our five-minute round with MP Gray.
6 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I really appreciate all the witnesses being here today. Really what I'm hearing is that in order to connect Canada, it will take political will to change the status quo. That comes with creating good policies, so I really appreciate the comments we're hearing here today.
My questions today will go to you, Mr. Gay, from the Regional District of East Kootenay. In rural communities such as yours, access to mental health services were limited, at best, prior to the pandemic. With the added isolation that today's physical distancing brings, mental health concerns are on the rise. Video calls with family members and friends are very important to help reduce this isolation.
What would increased access to the Internet in your community mean to health and well-being?
6 p.m.
Board Chair and Director Electoral Area C, Regional District of East Kootenay
Thank you. That's a very good question. I don't think we really realize the depths of that issue, because people are home; they're solitary.
When it comes to mental health issues, it would allow them to at least communicate with somebody. We're an aging community. For many of our seniors, loneliness is one of their biggest issues. As was mentioned by another speaker, maybe some seniors can't afford the access, but they can go to their local libraries to get it. Those libraries happen to be closed now.
All our communities are rural, and I think people are suffering more than they need to. Lots of things could be provided online in terms of counselling and coaching. We have a doctor shortage here as well. We're trying to bring more doctors to our community. There are lots of things in terms of mental health. In British Columbia, telehealth is quite a growing aspect, but again, without connectivity and high-speed Internet, telehealth isn't much good.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Gay.
Next, I'm not sure if you have had a chance to read the Conservative Party's consultation document on rural access to Internet. We released it just yesterday. We made recommendations on how to alleviate short-term bandwidth shortages in rural communities.
Have you had a chance to go through this document? Do you have any thoughts or recommendations? Did anything resonate with you in that document, if you've seen it?
6:05 p.m.
Board Chair and Director Electoral Area C, Regional District of East Kootenay
Yes, I have seen the document. I recognize that your committee will also be doing a study on the various aspects. I think you'll end up in the same place. I think most of us know it.
Certainly your document talks about a strategy at a national level, with some priorities. As I mentioned in my presentation, these program-based things solve a particular program for somebody, but it's not a universal fix, so I think that strategy is good. The discussion talks about infrastructure and the need for more money in infrastructure. As was mentioned, the money or the services could be available through the auctions. In this auction of spectrum, we're selling air. It's the greatest way to earn money. In politics, we'd love something like that. So put the money back or get these companies to provide the service. That's really important.
It does talk about a solution around municipalities owning it. At the Regional District of East Kootenay, we do own some fibre. When we first got into this, we were going to try to do it ourselves. We had a vote. Our citizens knew the importance of it. I think we own about 40 or 50 kilometres of fibre in our Columbia Valley area. In fact, it's funny, because we lease it back to Shaw, one of our larger carriers.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
That's really good information, Mr. Gay. Thank you for that.
One of our other recommendations in the consultation document is for changes to the way in which spectrum auctions function. Are spectrum auctions in their current form useful to your community? Do you have any thoughts on that at all?
6:05 p.m.
Board Chair and Director Electoral Area C, Regional District of East Kootenay
No. I would not be the best one to ask about that. Maybe it should be somebody who has a broader view on it. We follow the spectrum auctions and we see the dollars that are spent.
We do hear, though, from the smaller Internet service providers that they're locked out of this. The spectrum they need is just not made available to them. These individuals, as Mr. Thomson talked about, are in a very difficult position. They have high costs, difficult revenue and really difficult access to infrastructure. I think we would all like to see more competition, which would help with our rates, but we just can't seem to get these small companies up and running at full speed.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Have you seen any cases of small ISPs being bought out by larger corporations in your region or has that affected your area at all?
6:05 p.m.
Board Chair and Director Electoral Area C, Regional District of East Kootenay
Yes, certainly. Some of them actually started...sorry. The answer is yes.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you.
Unfortunately, that was all the time.
The next round of questions goes to Nathaniel Erskine-Smith. You have five minutes.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Thanks very much.
I'd like to change tack a little bit and focus on digital proximity tracing.
Laura, I understand OpenMedia, alongside the BCCLA and some other privacy and civil liberties focused organizations, released a statement of principles in relation to digital proximity tracing. I also understand that, today, privacy commissioners jointly released a similar statement about principles. I agree with almost everything in those documents, but I do wonder a little bit about the importance of voluntariness. I say that despite the Prime Minister indicating that voluntariness was critically important too, to build trust in these applications.
My challenge, and I wonder how you would respond to this challenge, is on the question of efficacy when we see that adoption rates are so low. We've seen 20% adoption rates in other countries, for example, that have a voluntary system. That adoption rate is not going to be effective. We've seen research out of Oxford that suggests a 60% national adoption rate is sort of a standard that one would look to, to say that would be effective.
Do you see a way to overcome that challenge, and to ensure there are adoption rates in a voluntary system?
6:10 p.m.
Executive Director, OpenMedia
I think the concerns that we have in these privacy principles.... That is one of the other things we're putting in the written record of this proceeding, because there's only so much time today. We will have more on it.
I think the biggest concern for us around voluntary versus mandatory is that, if it's mandatory, this is no longer consensual. The privacy protections that we have in place through PIPEDA and the Privacy Act are insufficient to actually protect Canadians' data. It's really rare that the voluntary piece needs to come in. I think there are huge concerns, taking a step back from the privacy principles that we've put forward, around the effectiveness of these apps, even where they are adopted.
I take your point around the efficacy concerns for adoption rates, but I think the testing that needs to happen needs to come first. The contact tracing needs to come second. This app is really a supplemental piece and a tiny fraction of the puzzle. I think one of the concerns that we have, or one of the things we've been hearing around the voluntary adoption, if the government is to go this way.... All of those privacy principles that we have put forward are done with the intention of making sure there is trust, because if there is no trust in this service, people will not use it, even if it's mandatory. People will leave their phones at home. They will not take them with them.
I think it also puts a huge disadvantage to those who, as we were talking about earlier, are on the other side of the digital divide, who don't have a phone. If this is now something that is being used to give people the permission to leave their houses or ride public transit and you don't have a device, you're now effectively being penalized and left behind even more.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I think that's a good point, where you tie privilege to the use of an application and people are left out as a matter of the digital divide, whether we're talking about seniors, the homeless or other circumstances where people don't have access to the technology. That is a real challenge that would need to be overcome.
But, when we're talking about initially what is effective, I wonder, the go-to to voluntariness... and I say this as someone who's been incredibly vocal and supportive of privacy overall as a parliamentarian, but if we're not even going to get in the door of any efficacy or usefulness out of this because of the barrier of voluntariness then.... I'll use an example here maybe. I read the privacy commissioner's statement, and de-identification is an incredibly important principle, but then they also note that de-identified, or aggregate, data should be used whenever possible unless it will not achieve the defined purpose.
Couldn't we take the same approach of necessity and proportionality writ large when it comes to voluntariness as well?
6:10 p.m.
Executive Director, OpenMedia
When we look at the really big picture, I don't think these apps are going to work. I think that's the big problem. I think that forcing them onto people when they're not going to actually have the impact that's desired—
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
That's a fair point if they don't work, but if they do work and they require a level of adoption for them to work, and voluntariness is standing in the way. I'm trying to think through this problem, and the challenge I see is that our economies have been devastated. We're obviously facing a recession and, if it extends further, potentially a depression. Our civil liberties are already curtailed significantly. We're not making this decision in a vacuum.
If—and it's a big if—the use of these applications that are an opt-out system rather than an opt-in system can move us faster to a life that means we can have some sense of normalcy, our economy returns and our lives may potentially be saved, I don't know whether that's the hill to go to battle on in the end. I wonder what you say to that.
6:10 p.m.
Executive Director, OpenMedia
I think, from a principled perspective, the way the government treats its citizens in crisis is the biggest test of our democracy. That's really why it's still a hill to battle for now.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
The next round of questions goes to MP Dreeshen.
You have five minutes.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
Of course, I just had a notice that my Internet connection is unstable, so hopefully I'll be able to get through this.
First of all, I want to thank everyone for appearing at this virtual committee hearing today. Those of us from rural areas have spent many hours trying to sort out these issues of our own connectivity. Of course, it's an ongoing battle made worse now that COVID-19 is forcing so many Canadians to try to adapt to a new paradigm of work, study and social connections from a computer monitor.
From my own perspective, hopefully the two geese that were trying to nest on my cell tower this morning have moved on to other parts, and we can go from there.
As the former vice-chair of the industry committee, I was honoured to help initiate the study on rural and remote broadband in the last Parliament. There was a great flurry of activity with respect to promises from this government regarding their connect to innovate program. There were some discussions about the connecting Canadians program that we had before. Well, that was five or six years ago.
We recognized the initial rollout that was associated with that, but of course, as Mr. Gay indicated earlier today, if you happen to have been fortunate enough, you might have been able to have some money come through the connect to innovate program, as many people in this country have, but there were a lot of places that were left out. I think that's really why we're so concerned about this.
Also, I believe there was some commentary about the consultation process that the Conservatives were doing on rural Internet access. One of the proposed recommendations we made had to do with the detailed strategy plan to address the geographical and economic disparities that exist as we embark on this goal to improve rural broadband access. One of the items preparing for further crises that might be part of that could be considering temporary deployment of cells on wheels to get out to some of these areas that have a lot of really serious problems.
When it comes to the disproportionate impact of rural broadband access to Canadian society, I'd like to get your thoughts on this and other measures that we could take to mitigate this inequality.
Perhaps I could have our folks from TekSavvy speak to this, please.
6:15 p.m.
Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
You're asking, I think, what can be done to move things quickly. While I think there is a place for cell on wheels as a very temporary measure to get connectivity to some place that's just unserviced now, that is a very temporary measure. It puts more pressure on cellular networks and will not deliver the kinds of speeds people are looking for, and certainly not in the long term.
Really, there are a lot of projects that small providers and probably large providers as well could initiate right now very quickly to get people online. It's really a matter of funding. TekSavvy has projects that are partially funded that we're ready to go with, but, as I alluded, our whole business is turned upside down by the rates and the appeals, and we don't have the money to fund it right now. If we did, we would be able to connect thousands of people in the southwestern Ontario area within a couple of months. It's about deploying money quickly to get projects done.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Again, part of that, of course, is our municipalities. Our municipalities have to grapple with the business disruptions that are taking place right now. They have to address the need to seamlessly connect students and teachers, ensure ways to give confidence to their residents and communicate with those who are facing the most trying of times.
From our folks in B.C., what have you been hearing from your municipal leaders with respect to the capacity build-out required to serve these rural communities?
6:15 p.m.
Board Chair and Director Electoral Area C, Regional District of East Kootenay
Certainly, as was said, there are plans on the shelf. We have projects under way right now that are underfunded, but could be extended. We have some real obstacles. I think across Canada we have telephone poles, electricity poles. Access to that infrastructure, these poles, even in our province is owned by BC Hydro, and we cannot get on those poles. It would be quite easy to deploy fibre. So access to infrastructure is an issue too.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Our next round of questions goes to MP Jaczek.
You have five minutes.
May 7th, 2020 / 6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses.
I think we can certainly agree the urgency of ensuring connectivity across Canada has been heightened through the pandemic, as so many of you have pointed out.
My riding of Markham—Stouffville does include a very rural area. Some of the comments made by Mr. Gay and Mayor Arnold really resonated with me because through the years there has been a concerted effort by municipalities, by York Region, to try to improve connectivity through the rural areas. Of course there has been the situation—Mayor Arnold, you referenced it in particular—that people come in, do an assessment and somehow it's not worth their while. There's no business case to improve the connectivity in particular areas. In particular, it seems—and I've heard this from rural MP colleagues—that some of the incumbents—Bell, Rogers, Telus—have made it quite clear they don't see a business case for them to connect rural Canada.
Mayor Arnold, could talk to that experience a little?