Transport Committee on May 4th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Minister.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I believe the deputy just answered that question, but if you'd like to reiterate it, Kelly, please go ahead.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Ms. Gillis.

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you, Chair.

First, we've been speaking with Quebec about all programs and agreements. That said, Quebec decided to change its program to align the program with ours.

If we need to redefine the types of projects that qualify for the program, we'll do so as part of the next agreement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Gillis, and Minister, and Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

We're now going to move on to Mr. Bachrach for two and half minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, operation high speed in Quebec is spending about a billion dollars—over $800 million in government funds—to serve about 150,000 households. We've tried to do the math a couple of different ways, but it seems like to get broadband to the 1.8 million Canadians who lack access, which was the last estimate by the CRTC, it's going to take significantly more than the $2.75 billion in the universal broadband fund.

Does your department have an estimate of what kind of federal investment is going to be required to meet the 2026 target?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

That's a very good question. Half of that $800 million-plus investment you refer to in Quebec has come from the federal government, and different provinces and territories will have different needs and different costs and different construction seasons. Certainly, we've invested more than $6 billion already in high-speed Internet connectivity, with another billion dollars for Budget 2021. We're rolling out that program as we speak, and I think the partnership with the Infrastructure Bank is also going to be interesting. We're seeing more and more Internet service providers take that route as well.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Sorry, Minister. Maybe I didn't quite phrase it properly. I'm just wondering if your department has an estimate of what federal investment is going to be required to meet the 2026 target.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

We do.

Éric, please go ahead.

[Éric Dagenais]

Mr. Chair, with the $2.75 billion that is in the universal broadband fund as well as the $2 billion within the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the $750 million from the CRTC, as well as the billions of dollars that we will be leveraging from the provinces and the private sector, we think we can meet the target of 98% by 2026.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Dagenais.

Mr. Bachrach, you have about 20 seconds.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay, so about $5.5 billion in federal investment should get us to the 2026 target of 98%?

I'm wondering, Minister, or to the departmental officials, what that 98% is based on. How did your department come up with 98%, and who are the 2% who aren't going to be served by 2026?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

The low-earth orbit satellite discussions, which I'm sure you've been a part of and hearing, will be the solution, we think, for that remaining 2% of Canadians who live in the most remote, hardest to reach communities across the country. We've developed this in line with the maps we have, which we update regularly, that tell us who is connected to high-speed Internet and who is not. Of course, we're keeping a very close eye on it through additional data that we're going to be collecting through our partnerships with StatsCan.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Minister and Mr. Bachrach.

We will move to the last part of our second round. I believe Mr. Scheer is taking Ms. Kusie's spot.

Mr. Scheer from the Conservative Party, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Thank you.

Minister, we were talking about the amount of money established for the large telecoms. You had asked your officials and they said they wouldn't be able to provide a response. Can you commit to this committee that you will break down how much each of the large established telecoms—Bell, Telus, Rogers—has received from the various envelopes that you administer?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Mr. Chair, I can follow up with this committee on the breakdown of the funds with different partners and different Internet service providers. I would be happy to.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Minister Monsef, could you send that to the clerk? I want to make sure that Mr. Scheer gets a copy of it.

Mr. Scheer, go ahead.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Just for clarification, because I know we're coming close to the end of my time right now, you had asked which website I was looking at. I am looking at “selected universal broadband fund projects”. I don't know if this is yet to be updated. This is one particular fund, and I recognize that, but so far it's only showing projects in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia and Ontario. There do seem to be a few provinces who have not yet had projects announced.

That's more by way of clarification—

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Can I add some context to that, Mr. Scheer?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Sure.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

We update that project tracker quarterly. It just had its first quarterly update. What you see on that site so far are the rapid-response approvals that we rolled out. The core universal broadband fund, which is the majority of the fund, has yet to go up on that website. We're still going through those bigger applications and having conversations with provinces about how they want to move forward with their broadband needs.

So it will be updated. The site you are looking at doesn't give the full picture but only the rapid-response projects that had recently been approved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Scheer.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I appreciate that clarification.

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, procedurally I was hoping that we could move to resume debate on the motion that Ms. Kusie had proposed at the last meeting. I'm more familiar with my House procedure than I am with committee procedure. I would like to use my time here, having the floor right now, to resume debate on the motion that Ms. Kusie had proposed last week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Scheer. There's no debate on the resumption of that debate to move forward. Therefore, I will go straight to a vote.

Mr. Clerk, can you call the vote, please?