Feds spring for a better backbone for St. Joseph Island

From dial up to low-orbiting satellites, innovators have found many ways to meet the geographical challenges of northern Ontario. 

The government of Canada is getting behind new technologies in order to increase and improve access to the Internet for people in remote and rural areas, says David Lametti who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Office of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

He was in the picturesque village of Hilton Beach, on St. Joseph Island this morning with Sault MPP Terry Sheehan to tell everyone how a $2.74 million chunk of a $500 million pie set aside to bridge the digital divide will be spent.

During the announcement, held on behalf of Minister Navdeep Bains, at the Hilton Beach Community Centre, Lametti said the government was exploring ways to bring reliable, consistent access to the Internet to remote, far-north communities and low-orbiting satellites was an option it’s exploring. 

But the $2.74 million announced today will be spent on bolstering the high speed backbone to the municipalities on St. Joseph Island in an effort to make the Internet faster, more reliable and more accessible to Islanders.

Representative from Bell were also on hand to pitch in another $912,000 for the project.

Lametti said Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, is aggressively pushing to bring Internet access to as many Canadians as possible and is employing a two-pronged approach.

The first, the one Lametti was talking about today, involves bringing access to remote and rural Canadians.

The second helps to include all Canadians in that access through the Connecting Canadians Program.

“(This program) allows for lower income Canadians to have low-cost access to better data packages,” he said. “Minister Bains is going to continue to push for better access, and cheaper access across Canada.”

Lametti said better access to the Internet means better access to satisfying employment, medical care and social circles for all Canadians.