Industry Committee on May 11th, 2020

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with MP Hutchings.

To continue on with Mr. Kennedy, in our part of Ontario, we've been working with the municipalities, with the Western Ontario Wardens' Caucus, looking at the SWIFT project and the need to combine efforts with the small rural communities and the provinces in which they reside, and with the federal government.

With COVID-19, some of the equations might change. Municipalities might be strapped for cash, or provinces may not be at the table. Have we taken any steps in terms of modelling, going forward, from the federal government?

[Simon Kennedy]

I could again maybe turn to Éric Dagenais to get into the technical detail.

However, when the new program opens, which I think ministers have indicated they will be wanting to move forward quickly, we're going to see very rapidly what kinds of proposals come in and what kind of financing capability the various parties can bring to the table. I think we're going to want to be very responsive to the reality on the ground. Obviously, circumstances may well have changed with COVID-19.

I realize there's limited time, but if you want to get deeper into the question, I could ask my staff to speak to that.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I don't want your staff to have to speculate, but I think it's fair to say that we have some work to do in terms of how we evaluate going forward.

I'll turn it over to Ms. Hutchings.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Kennedy, continuing on the theme of broadband, I think we're all in agreement that urgency is a prerequisite. As the minister said, the importance of this connectivity is similar to the railway going in.

I have two quick questions for you.

Can you give me your comments on where you think we can use passive infrastructure in advancing to these small rural communities? I, too, am like my colleague Mr. Patzer. I have over 200 communities of probably 1,000 people and under. If there is passive infrastructure, can we use that?

What other interim measures is the department looking at to ensure we get people connected as quickly as possible, especially in the era of safety? We have communities with no communication now, at all.

[Simon Kennedy]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm so sorry. I missed the front end of the question. I think there was a question about the use of passive infrastructure.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Yes.

[Simon Kennedy]

That is something we're very alive to. I think Janet Yale's panel mentioned this as an issue. That was the panel that came out maybe two months ago.

Certainly you want to take advantage where you can of passive infrastructure, because that's an efficient way to make sure you can make broadband available. The CRTC is currently reviewing access, for example, to telephone poles, so there's already a proceeding being run by the CRTC. That is the area we're very alive to, just to assure the member of that.

In the short term, we obviously want to do everything we can to support the availability of data and voice services to Canadians, and there's a lot of work being done with the telcos to try to ensure that people have access during the crisis period.

I'm not sure if that was the question, but—

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Yes, it was. I was wondering what you were looking at as interim measures that could help communities that have no accessibility either with broadband or cell right now.

[Simon Kennedy]

The first thing is that we want to make sure that when the program is up and running, we go as quickly as possible. An aim will be to try to roll out the new funding under the universal broadband program as rapidly as we can. That's certainly a priority.

In terms of the existing network, there's a lot of work that telcos are doing to expand the availability of their networks, to add additional capacity so it can hold up to the traffic. There's been a huge increase in voice traffic and data traffic and so on There are some things we've done with them in terms of delaying payment of fees, accelerating the transfer of licences. When one company has some spectrum they can't use and another company can use it, we speed up those transfers so that they can balance the load and more efficiently serve customers during the crisis.

There are things we're doing now, even with the existing infrastructure, behind the scenes. Then, of course, when the new program launches—

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Sorry. I was just going to say that the minister made reference to some changes that we made in CTI and that you're going to see in UBF. Can you give us a couple of examples of how we've made the UBF better going forward in the application process and in the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, that wraps up our time for this evening, but I'd like to thank everyone for being here and helping us along the way in this study for the response on COVID-19.

Again, our next meeting is on Thursday, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

With that, I will call this meeting adjourned. Thank you very much, everyone.