Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for that excellent question and excellent history. It gives me an opportunity to mention part of my speech that I never got to, about things that were not in the throne speech.
What was not in the throne speech was that a number of communities are going to be getting letters suggesting their CAP sites will no longer be funding their Internet access.
The throne speech suggests that it is going to take in the realities of rural Canada, but the member has just brought up an excellent example of where it does not take account of those realities. Rural Canadians cannot just walk into a Government of Canada office as it may be hundreds of miles away. Rural Canada needs Internet access and increased bandwidth. Rural Canadians need more Internet access for health care. Doctors send X-rays, MRIs, diagnoses, et cetera, over the Internet.
High schools in small communities do not have experts in all topics. They need access to distance education.
The member brought up an excellent point that there should be increased investment, not decreased investment in online services, the Internet, increased bandwidth, for people in rural Canada to access federal services.