B.C.'s Minister of Citizen Services Jinny Sims announced $16 million in provincial funding for broadband connectivity, targeted to remote and rural communities.
The funding will be in the form of grants for which internet service providers, First Nations communities and community organizations will be able to apply. The government will begin accepting applications for these 'last mile' projects as of July 1, 2018. Last mile projects allow the final connection to a high-speed network. Another intake period for applications for transport fibre projects will commence on Sept 1, 2018. The grants, part of the $40 million Connecting British Columbia program initially announced in 2017, will be administered by the Northern Development Initiative Trust.
Sims said the new provincial funding, along with the recently announced federal and provincial funding for a $7 million fibre-optic loop along Highway 97 between Prince George and Dawson Creek, will help connect some of B.C.'s most remote communities.
"The very people who we want to access that digital service are the ones that don't have the connection. So if we're going to reduce the economic divide, we have to reduce the digital divide," Sims said.
"In communities where they even get a few blocks of fibre-optic down, they have seen a huge growth in the tech sector, in attracting businesses, in attracting professionals to work in municipal government and in local industries."
Sims said the funding is being allocated in the form of grants is order to allow rural and First Nations communities to identify their priorities in terms of connectivity.
"Sitting in Victoria, we can't decide or determine the needs of each and every community. So they have to do some homework. They have to decide what their needs are, what they're going to use that last mile for," Sims said.
Bob Allen, president of the B.C. Broadband Association, said federal and provincial funding for broadband access has been essential to the approximately 100 small internet service providers in rural areas of the province. Without this funding, the prices paid for broadband by users in rural communities would be far higher, he said.
"That's been an ongoing issue from the very beginning of our internet cycle, is that the urban speeds have risen and package prices have not particularly come down," Allen said.
"These investments by the province, that have matched the federal dollars consistently over the last ten years of the federal programs, have really made a difference in terms of the quality of the internet that our members can provide."
Sims said the commitment to broadband access for rural or remote communities was part of the commitment of the Horgan government to fulfilling the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
When asked if the current funding might be used for the establishment of Wifi hotspots along areas of the Highway of Tears where people commonly gather, as some family members of missing and murdered indigenous women have suggested, Sims said her ministry, along with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, was looking into this possibility.
She did not offer a specific timeline, but suggested a collaborative application for funding from First Nations communities.
"If three, four or five communities can get together, it actually has a huge impact," Sims said.
She pointed to a January 2018 announcement of $45 million in funding from federal and provincial leaders for broadband connectivity in northern and southern rural communities along the coast. This initiative, supported by 154 communities, including 56 First Nations communities, drew a high level of funding because of the widespread regional support, she said.
