How important is high speed internet?
If you’re the owner of a small business, odds are that you need access to high speed internet in order to be competitive in a world addicted to online shopping.
Last week, Canada’s Auditor General (AG) had some harsh criticisms of the government’s efforts to improve high speed internet in rural areas.
The criticisms were directed at the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development – the department tasked with improving rural internet speeds.
The AG took issue with the fact that the government still has not provided a publicly available connectivity map. This would show Canadians what areas are in need of service.

The reason the government hasn’t provided this? It has to respect “the commercially sensitive nature of internet service providers’ network information.”
The question that needs to be asked is whether or not internet access should be seen as a product delivered by private companies or a public good that benefits all citizens.
It doesn’t seem like the government has an answer to that question.
On the one hand, the government excuses a lack of a publicly available connectivity map because it doesn’t want to jeopardize the profit margins of the big telecom companies.
On the other hand, the government has said that a lack of access to high speed internet for rural Canadians creates a “digital divide” that increases the challenges those areas already face.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) declared that “any Canadian without access to broadband access is profoundly disadvantaged.”
The government’s Connect to Innovate fund, which was launched in 2016, is a five-year plan to dole out $500 million to telecommunication companies to provide high speed internet to underserved areas.
However, the AG said that the government failed to include a provision that would make private companies prove that their projects weren’t feasible without government funds.
“The program did not include any way of mitigating the risk of government funds displacing private investment,” the report says.
In other words: there’s no way to tell if private companies used taxpayer dollars to pay for investments they would have made anyways.
The government is essentially working as a middle-man by giving tax dollars to telecom companies that taxpayers already pay to provide internet.
It seems unfair that rural folks should have to pay twice to get internet speeds that are slower than their urban counterparts.
Of course there are sacrifices that are often made when a person chooses to live in a remote place.
Is it fair to want to live far-removed from an urban area yet expect the same level of convenience? Of course not.
It’s impossible to expect that every single Canadian, regardless of location, should have access to high speed internet. There are obviously restrictions.
If we’re going to treat high speed internet as a public good by investing billions of taxpayer dollars, it would make sense to do this as efficiently as possible.
So why are we subsidizing private companies?
Why not eliminate the government as a middle-man and make it the main provider?
Private companies exist for one purpose: to make a profit.
The government is in the business of doing things that private companies can’t or won’t do: things that aren’t profitable.
That’s why there are so many areas in our region with shoddy internet coverage. There aren’t enough people to justify a company like Bell Canada to spend the money to bring infrastructure to those regions, so the government has to step in to provide an incentive to these companies.
But it’s unclear if these companies are actually using the money to improve rural internet speeds or if they’re using it to improve already fast urban speeds. As the AG pointed out, the money isn’t being tracked well enough.
Why not have provincial governments take over?
This would eliminate the profit motive and ensure that the money that goes into the crown corporation goes to the infrastructure and not bonuses for board members of already profitable companies.
For example, Saskatchewan has it’s own crown corporation that competes against the private telecom companies in the province.
Like the Pontiac, Saskatchewan isn’t exactly a densely-populated area. As such, it was decided that a crown corporation was the best way to provide the service.
Apparently, consumers are happy with what they get. In fact, according to a 2018 J.D. Power report, SaskTel ranked number one in customer satisfaction for internet providers in Western Canada for the sixth year in a row.
If we’re going to spend billions improving internet access to Canadians, let’s make sure that all of the money goes to improving internet access and keep it out of privately-owned boardrooms.

Chris Lowrey