Ontario spending $150M to boost rural internet

Province developing plan to ensure students, staff safe when schools reopen

Queen’s Park is spending $150 million to improve rural broadband internet and cellular service as Education Minister Stephen Lecce warns students, teachers and parents to brace for “all eventualities in the fall.”

With Ontario schools closed since March 23 due to COVID-19, Lecce emphasized Wednesday that “what parents should expect is the government is going to take every single precaution possible to keep children safe.

“We will never compromise the safety of our youngest learners,” he said, noting Ontario was the first province in Canada to shutter classrooms due to the pandemic.

Lecce said the government is developing procedures to ensure students, teachers and staff are safe when schools reopen in September.

“We’re coming up with a plan that will keep your child safe but allow them to return in the fall — that is the plan for September — and obviously build a protocol that gives confidence to parents, but also to our staff as well,” he said.

“So we’re going to do that, we’re going to build out that plan and release it to the public … by the end of June, and give some certainty to everyone.”

Lecce’s comments came as Infrastructure Minister Laurie Scott announced $150 million toward rural broadband and cellular service.

“As someone from rural Ontario who lives this experience firsthand, I know the digital divide is real,” said Scott.

The hope is to close that gap for the 12 per cent of Ontario households — most in rural or remote areas — that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has deemed unserved or underserved.

Scott said the new initiative builds up telecommunications infrastructure improvements now under construction in Lambton, Wellington and Norfolk counties in southwestern Ontario.

“Is it enough? No. Will we do more? Yes. But today is a very good step, a step that moves us forward in connecting Ontarians,” she said.

“But it is a journey that we cannot take without the support of our federal partners. Today, we are calling on the federal government to step up and help us expand connectivity to everyone across Ontario. We all deserve the opportunity to join the economy of the 21st century.”

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the Progressive Conservative government needs to do much more.

“This pandemic has upended the way we work and live and nobody thinks we will be returning to the way things were,” said Schreiner.

“Families, businesses and schools will be relying even more on digital connectivity, amplifying the urgent need for improved broadband in rural areas,” he said.