Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 5th, 2023

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

So there's one.

[Éric Dagenais]

No, there are more. There are definitely more. I think we can get back to you in writing. The funding has been allocated.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have 25 seconds, Mr. Mazier.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Ms. Eatrides, on the universal broadband fund website, the government states that the CRTC's $750-million broadband fund supports mobile Internet projects.

How many cellular projects have been completed through the CRTC's broadband fund?

[Vicky Eatrides]

I will endeavour to get back to you with that information as well.

Thank you.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Yip, you have the floor for five minutes now.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Coming from Toronto, I was so pleased to hear that our subway systems will now have connectivity. I think that although we are—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Is that a point of order?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Yes, sir.

I would endeavour to encourage my colleagues to be respectful. We obviously listened to what they had to say. I would encourage them to listen to what members on all sides have to say as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's fair enough.

I recognize that in a committee there will be some murmuring, but I would urge members to keep it at a tone so that other members or witnesses are not distracted.

Ms. Yip, you have the floor again for four minutes and 40 seconds.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

I was just saying how pleased I was to have connectivity in the subway, but it's like “finally” we are having connectivity.

I note that a rapid response stream was launched in response to the urgency highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the report noted, it needed extensions. How successful was the stream and why were the extensions needed?

[Simon Kennedy]

The extensions were primarily required because of the huge volume of applications we received. It was an order of magnitude more than originally anticipated. The thinking had been that the number of shovel-ready projects that would be available to move ahead immediately were fewer than what we actually received in the end.

I can maybe turn to Mr. Dagenais to speak specifically to his views on the....

[Éric Dagenais]

The Internet service providers who won awards under the rapid response, in many cases, asked us for extensions because they were facing supply chain constraints. They were facing labour shortage issues. They were struggling to get things done during the pandemic, so they asked for an extension. There are a number of provincial initiatives where the same thing happened as well.

COVID was a particularly challenging time to be building out infrastructure. Now the extension was given and the projects are largely completed at this point for the rapid response stream, so they're connecting households.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Are there any more projects under the rapid response stream?

[Éric Dagenais]

We're not selecting any more rapid response stream projects. An amount of funding was set aside for the rapid response and it has been allocated.

At this point, we're working on the 426 projects that have been awarded under the universal broadband fund.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

My next question is for Ms. Hogan.

I was looking at the report's “At a Glance”, and I noticed that there wasn't any data for Nunavut. Could you tell me why?

[Karen Hogan]

That would be a question really best turned over to the departments. There was no data available for the territory; hence we could not audit or report on it.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Would Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Dagenais like to answer that, in reference to Nunavut?

[Éric Dagenais]

If it's in reference to the number of citizens who have access to 50/10, the answer is that no residents of Nunavut at the moment have access to 50/10.... I'm sorry. They have access to Starlink as of last December, so they're are Starlink....

In terms of wireline connectivity that offers 50/10 service to households, that doesn't happen in Nunavut. That may be why no data was given. We have received applications. We've funded some projects. Projects are being worked on to remedy that situation.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Is Starlink a satellite service?

[Éric Dagenais]

Yes. Starlink is a low-earth orbit satellite constellation that was launched a few years ago. As of late last year, it began offering a polar orbit and service was available north of 60 in Canada. Prior to that, it had been available to households south of 60, and then it became progressively available as more satellites were launched. As of last December, it became available. From the latest numbers I've seen, it offers speeds of upwards of 100 megabits per second.

You buy a dish, set it up in your backyard and you get access to high-speed Internet via low-earth orbit satellite. The difference between this and regular satellite is that these are much closer to earth. They are a thousand kilometres in the sky as opposed to 36,000, so there is low latency. The signal between your dish, the Internet and the satellite is much faster. That has an impact on the applications when you are using the Internet.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Could this not be used in more remote areas?

[Éric Dagenais]

Yes, we've funded applications under the universal broadband fund that requested support to use Starlink dishes. A number of provincial governments...and Quebec is probably the leading example. It has worked quite closely with Starlink in order to reserve capacity for households that don't have a wireline service.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is the time, Ms. Yip.

We started a few minutes late. I'm going to truncate the next round so we can get through a full round. Government and official opposition members will have three minutes each, and the other two opposition parties will have 90 seconds each.

To give people a heads-up, I have a few questions from the analysts that they would like to have put to the witnesses, and I will have a question as well.

We'll turn now to Mr. Nater. You have the floor for three minutes.