{"id":30763,"date":"2020-04-25T08:02:10","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T12:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/?p=30763"},"modified":"2020-04-25T08:15:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T12:15:21","slug":"letter-official-opposition-writes-to-premier-about-rural-and-northern-access-to-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/25\/letter-official-opposition-writes-to-premier-about-rural-and-northern-access-to-broadband\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter – Official Opposition writes to Premier about Rural and Northern Access to Broadband"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

April 24, 2020<\/p>\n

Hon. Doug Ford
\nPremier’s Office
\nRoom 281
\nLegislative Building, Queen’s Park
\nToronto, ON M7A 1A1<\/p>\n

RE: Rural and Northern Access to Broadband<\/p>\n

Dear Premier,<\/p>\n

The reality of almost everyone in our province drastically changed last month. It became\u00a0evident that to save ourselves from COVID-19 and to curb the spread of the virus, we\u00a0would have to self-isolate. For a great number of people this means to work and learn\u00a0from home via the internet.<\/p>\n

As you are aware, some internet providers have decided to enhance internet services.\u00a0These enhancements came with specific conditions. In all cases, the results were that\u00a0people living in Northern and rural Ontario are left behind.<\/p>\n

As you also know that some communities in our ridings were waiting to be upgraded to\u00a0proper broadband before this pandemic started. The Official Opposition has been very\u00a0insistent in pushing your government to act and make sure that people have guaranteed\u00a0access to this essential service wherever they live in our province. We have made this a\u00a0priority since before the last provincial election. We continue to believe that a $1 billion\u00a0investment in infrastructure is needed, to make sure that all communities across rural\u00a0and northern Ontario are able to access quality internet services.<\/p>\n

To quote the Northern Policy Institute: \u201cThe Canadian Radio-television and\u00a0Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) states a target bandwidth of 50 Mbps\u00a0(megabits per second) download speeds and 10 Mbps upload speeds to smoothly\u00a0participate in the digital economy (CRTC 2019). In Northern Ontario, there is a\u00a0significant lack of access to this target speed. In fact, 15.5 per cent of the population still\u00a0have bandwidth speeds below the 50\/10 Mbps target through any delivery method.<\/p>\n

That is 120,932 residents out of 780,140 Northerners. For these households, their main\u00a0options are DSL, cable modems, and\/or fixed wireless.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have been very disappointed to hear time and time again that your government,\u00a0and the previous one, were going to make significant investment in broadband, and yet\u00a0nothing has moved or been announced for Northern communities. In two years of being\u00a0in government, there has been no public mention whatsoever of investing in broadband\u00a0for Northern Ontario. And now that a pandemic is forcing everyone to work from home\u00a0and depend on their internet, the damage is done and people are stuck without highspeed\u00a0internet, putting our region once again at a disadvantage to the rest of the\u00a0province.<\/p>\n

Now that we are in the middle of a pandemic, and that internet companies are\u00a0providing a service that had been deemed essential long before this crisis, we ask that\u00a0you take actions to correct the inequity. Premier, take the necessary steps to ensure\u00a0providers grant the same enhancements for all customers, so that we all have access to\u00a0the adequate internet. We ask that these enhancements be extended for the duration\u00a0of this pandemic as people have no other choice but to work and learn from home.<\/p>\n

People need the internet to continue working and bringing an income. People need the\u00a0internet to apply to emergency help from governments and to pay their bills. People\u00a0need the internet to continue receiving an education and graduate in time. People need\u00a0the internet to stay connected with their friends and families, and continue to be able to\u00a0keep track of the daily announcements about the pandemic.<\/p>\n

It is unacceptable that companies continue to apply the \u201cnormal\u201d rules and to charge\u00a0people hundreds of dollars extra because they went over their monthly limit, while\u00a0enhancing internet services for urban customers and denying rural and northerners the\u00a0same enhancements. This is unfair and unacceptable to people living in rural and\u00a0northern communities.<\/p>\n

We look forward to your prompt response and more importantly your action to correct\u00a0the matter.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n[Signed]\n

Gilles Bisson, MPP Timmins
\nGuy Gourgouin, MPP Mushkegowuk-James Bay
\nFrance G\u00e9linas, MPP Nickle Belt
\nSol Mamawka, MPP Kiiwetinoong
\nJudith Monteith-Farrell, MPP Thunder Bay-Atikokan
\nMichael Mantha, MPP Algoma-Manitoulin
\nJohn Vanthof, MPP Timiskaming
\nJamie West, MPP Sudbury<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  April 24, 2020 Hon. Doug Ford Premier’s Office Room 281 Legislative Building, Queen’s Park Toronto, ON M7A 1A1 RE: Rural and Northern Access to Broadband Dear Premier, The reality …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-16 07:49:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30765,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30763\/revisions\/30765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}