Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in the debate on Bill C-14.
As the House knows, the Bloc Québécois has already stated that it will vote in favour of the bill because on the whole it will provide long-awaited support to our SMEs and our families.
I could have talked about a pile of programs that met certain needs because, again, families and SMEs do not have access to assistance. They either do not meet the criteria, their application has not been processed or it is waiting on a pile, or they are having a hard time getting through to anyone by phone to help them navigate the various programs.
Instead today, I want to take the opportunity to speak about and shed light on some very important issues that are a priority for parliamentarians, but also for my constituents, the people I represent in the riding of Salaberry—Suroît.
On page 81 of the 2020 fall economic statement, the government acknowledges that “Canadians in many rural and remote communities who still do not have access to high-speed Internet face a barrier to their ability to be equal participants in the economy.”
In 2018, just 41% of rural households had access to high-speed Internet, which is defined as a download speed of 50 megabits per second and an upload speed of 10 megabits per second. The speeds I get back home in Ormstown are laughable. I think I have two speeds: slow and non-existent.
That percentage accurately reflects my reality. Allow me to compare that to urban areas. That same study showed that 98% of urban households in large and medium-sized population centres had access to high-speed Internet. I find this unacceptable. This inequality between rural and urban communities is inexplicable and untenable.
I am proud to represent a rural riding. My riding does have some urban centres, but the vast majority of it is rural. No matter where you go in my riding, you are about 30 to 45 minutes from Montreal. In my own home, I am about 50 kilometres from Montreal and I do not have access to high-speed Internet.
I am not using my personal circumstances to elicit sympathy. No one in my neighbourhood or in my town has access to fibre, which would help us join the 21st century just like the people living in cities or urban centres. Every week I have constituents asking me, not always politely, why we are not connected yet, when they will be connected and when the Internet will finally reach their home. I think that we are very patient. We have been waiting a long time. Quebeckers and the people of the riding of Salaberry—Suroît do not understand why it is taking so long to get connected.
We have to buy technological gadgets. I have bought cellular equipment.
I have a lot of equipment. I believe I have spent $1,500 on equipment because companies sell me new technology that will supposedly provide high-speed service. We install it, we get our hopes up, but it does not work.
Teleworking during the pandemic has been a nightmare for people like me in Salaberry—Suroît living without high-speed Internet. It has been a struggle getting the children to do their school work when three or four computers are connected to the same network. It has been an ordeal trying to study or work remotely.
In Salaberry—Suroît, I am lucky to be able to rely on cable companies that have a social conscience and want to develop the fibre optic network. I am thinking in particular of the co-operative CSUR. There is also the private company Targo. They know exactly which parts of my riding do not have high-speed Internet.
These cable companies have submitted project proposals for various subsidy programs in Quebec and Canada. The programs are not coordinated, however, and plans to connect families and households are completely disorganized, especially in rural areas. Neither the CRTC nor the government can say when the projects will be approved.
That is not all. On November 26, the CRTC's chairperson and CEO appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology for its study on the accessibility and affordability of telecommunications services, which the Bloc Québécois had requested. Here is what he said about deployment plans submitted in June: “we have received almost 600 applications from all regions of the country. They add up to a total of $1.5 billion. We have our work cut out for us. We are working quickly to assess those projects and we'll move forward. All of those are targeted areas that do not have acceptable levels of broadband service.”
In other words, there is a desperate need. People are ready, and they are feeling very impatient. We still do not know who will benefit from that money because the CRTC has a lot of work to do to assess the projects.
Still, we can say that there have been some advances. Bianka Dupaul, the executive director of the CSUR co-op, told me that during an installation on a rural road before Christmas, residents were crying at the prospect of a reliable connection. They felt lucky to get access to this connection before Christmas. It was a real blessing for them.
Sharing this good fortune is not complicated: the various levels of government need to coordinate their efforts to connect rural areas to high-speed Internet. Big companies like Bell Canada need to be brought into line, since they are engaging in legal obstruction and hindering the Internet rollout.
It is not just a matter of getting connected. There is also the whole issue of maintaining the network. For example, the CSUR co-op requested access to a specific pole and received a $14,000 bill for the work required to make the pole safe. Before the fibre optic cable could even be run, $14,000 had to be paid to secure the pole and gain access to it. This is far from reasonable. It is exploitation. We do not understand what is going on right now. Why do cable companies that want access to the poles end up with such whopping bills? I have written letters denouncing this situation, we have approached the media, and we have written emails to the minister and municipalities and sent resolutions.
We feel like the federal government is listening but not taking any action. No one is tackling the issue of high-speed Internet head on. No one is taking it seriously or acting with the urgency required. A new minister is taking care of this file, a minister from Quebec who also represents a rural riding. He can be sure that the Bloc Québécois will be there to remind him of his commitment to get all rural regions connected to high-speed Internet so that they can enter the same century as urban areas.