Madam Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague, Mr. Rogers, because that's something dear to my heart. As I said before, I feel exactly the same as him. A good part of my own riding is not connected with either cellphone or Internet. I'm happy to advocate for him and with him on that very important issue.
The rural and community stream under our program is providing some elements of response to that. We have been able under the program to tailor the rules to be able to finance part of that. However, I would say, Madam Chair, this is only part of the answer.
I think that the connect to innovate program, under Minister Bains, has been very important with the $500 million that was set aside to start connecting Canada. I think that people understand today that Internet connectivity is a bit like electricity in the old days, where this is allowing people to, for example, have remote education, remote learning, or remote medicine, for example, provided in their communities.
I understand the member and I can assure him that I'm on the same page as him. We would like to work with you to make sure that we can do more for communities across Canada with respect to the Internet.