Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I begin my remarks, I would also like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about the audit of rural and remote connectivity. This is a crucial issue and one with which my ministry is seized. As long as there are Canadians who are not connected to broadband Internet, we will not be satisfied, and we are as impatient as, I think, others that progress is made on this file. I appreciate the chance to provide an update on what we're doing.
In June of 2019, the government released Canada's first connectivity strategy. It included the goal of connecting all Canadians by 2030 and interim goals of connecting 90% of Canadians by 2021 and 98% by 2026. Overall, $7.6 billion has been committed federally to that strategy since 2015. That is an unprecedented amount. It's about 10 times more than all previous federal connectivity commitments since the 1990s combined, so it's a substantial investment.
I'm pleased to say that we are seeing strong and steady progress as a result of the government's connectivity strategy. For example, in 2018 only 86% of Canadian households had access to broadband Internet at speeds of 50 megabits per second download and 10 megabits per second upload. By the end of this year, we're anticipating that will grow to 94.6% of households, so that's about a 60% closing of the gap in the last five years. That is largely as a result of the significant investments that have been made.
Similar progress is happening in rural and indigenous communities. There is a lot more to be done—I want to be clear. I don't think we want to crow about success, but I think it's important to note that there has been a pretty rapid closure in the gaps, including in rural and indigenous communities. For example, in 2018 only about 42% of rural households had access to those speeds. At the end of this year, we're on track to reach 71% of households. That's a 70% improvement since 2018.
First nations coverage is also expanding significantly, slated to hit 50% coverage of broadband this year. That is up from 32% in 2018, so that's about 56% growth in coverage in the last five years.
Building out this infrastructure in challenging geographies takes time, it's true. And, like so many others, this sector has been subject to supply chain constraints. But we are still on track. Not only did we exceed our first goal of 90% coverage by 2021, but we’re also on track to surpass our next goal of 98% by 2026.
Our programs are also expanding mobile wireless coverage. For example, in partnership with B.C., we have a project to expand coverage along the Highway of Tears through B.C.
The government does recognize that affordability is an important issue for Canadians. Under the UBF or universal broadband fund, projects that lower prices to the consumer are prioritized. I would be happy to provide more detail in testimony. This means that rural Canadians will have access to modern services at prices that are comparable to those that are paid in urban areas.
I'd also note that we're building much faster speeds and for the needs of the future. About 80¢ of every dollar we're spending is going to one gigabit or better speeds. That means that fibre optic cable, basically, is the majority of the investments. Even though our standard is 50/10, most of the money is going to projects that are 20 times faster than that, so in some sense we're future-proofing the investments we're making, because they will have significant capacity.
As I noted, broadband projects, similar to other infrastructure projects, can take two to three years to complete, through permitting and construction. That will not, we believe, impact our ability to meet the goals. Funding recipients are able to begin their project and they are compensated as expenses are incurred. They actually have the ability to pre-spend a certain amount of money even before the final contract is signed, which means that projects are getting under way, the infrastructure is getting built and Canadians are benefiting.
We also have regulatory initiatives to support the efforts being made to directly invest in broadband. For example, we made more spectrum frequencies available, and we've implemented strong “use it or lose it” provisions for spectrum, so that people who purchase spectrum at auction actually have a legally binding requirement to deploy it.
We will ensure that the recommendations in the audit are implemented as part of our plan. For example, the government’s policy direction to the CRTC came into force in February and has measures to improve affordability and measuring quality of service.
In May of this year, we also updated our UBF public dashboard and our national broadband availability map to demonstrate progress.
The investments being made are transformational in scale, and we are only partway through our plan. We know we have a lot more work to do. We know there are Canadians in rural areas, we know there are indigenous Canadians, who are not yet connected, but I would just like to leave the main message that significant progress has been made. We anticipate meeting the future targets as we go year by year until we hit 100% of Canadians covered by 2030 and 98% in about two and a half years' time.
Thank you very much for the chance to be here with you today.
