Canadian Heritage committee  I think in the case of many indigenous communities, it comes down to not having the actual infrastructure yet in the areas where indigenous communities are located. It's about having the right financial incentives or programs in the strategy to ensure that infrastructure gets to

Canadian Heritage committee  I am not sure I have much more to add to that.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a challenge that I think both of these entities have to address. As I mentioned, they didn't expect the volume they received. They now know what they need to do differently so that this happens more quickly. The funding of those projects even delays other spending, so the

Canadian Heritage committee  We didn't audit the whole process, unfortunately. I don't know where those resources went when they hired extra people.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm going to ask Sami to look at that.

Canadian Heritage committee  We didn't focus so much on emerging technology. We looked at what's out there and really focused on the use of spectrum licences, where radio frequency bands are used in areas where you don't have hard cables. We made some recommendations around improving access to spectrum and s

Canadian Heritage committee  Anecdotally, it is likely because there is more funding provincially or municipally devoted to connectivity in certain provinces than in others. As I mentioned, seven provinces have MOUs because those provinces have connectivity strategies and initiatives and the others do not. I

Canadian Heritage committee  I would expect that's something the federal government does when it assesses what projects to fund. If you have an accurate map that shows you that a certain province is really underserved, then you likely want to target more funding there than in a province that's almost fully s

Canadian Heritage committee  You had many observations in there. I'll try to tackle a few things. I think money is going to larger service providers because most of it is about infrastructure. They're the ones bidding and can afford those kinds of projects. We know a lot of projects came from municipalities

Canadian Heritage committee  We've really focused on the CRTC and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. We looked at the commitment they made as to how long it would take to review an application and provide notification of whether it had been approved for funding, and then at how long it actu

Canadian Heritage committee  As you mentioned, many of us take for granted that we might leave here today and, on our cellphone, pay a bill before we head home. There are many individuals in rural and remote communities who can't do that, but putting a price tag on missed opportunity is really difficult. W

Canadian Heritage committee  We spoke to service providers and other stakeholders. A very common comment we received was that the maps were outdated over many months, as I mentioned earlier, and sometimes had inaccurate information. That's why we made a recommendation to the government to find a better way t

Canadian Heritage committee  It's not up to me to comment on policies set by the government, but I can make recommendations on their implementation by the departments. I could, therefore, communicate with the people at Statistics Canada, who are experts on statistics. However, if the agency isn't the focus

Canadian Heritage committee  During the audit, I was concerned about the issue of affordability. I had a number of discussions on that topic with the deputy minister of ISED. I believe that, for the department, the decision to include household income or not in the definition of affordability is a policy iss

Canadian Heritage committee  We did look at how the federal government coordinates its efforts with the provinces. We felt it was important to make sure that this coordination was happening so that every dollar spent, whether it be federal or provincial money, would be spent to go further and not just double