This past week, representatives of both the federal and provincial governments unveiled a new plan to connect homes across the province to high speed fibre internet, with a deadline of September 2022.

Titled Operation High Speed, the plan has allocated . . .

$147 million for the Outaouais region specifically to hook up 29,001 homes, out of a total envelope of $826.3 million for Quebec. The Outaouais was by far the largest recipient in terms of homes connected and money invested.

Pontiac MP Will Amos, who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, spoke to The Equity about the project and how it would differ from previous efforts to connect residents.

“My mentality’s always been, whatever it takes to get everyone hooked up,” he said. “That’s what this agreement with increased investments from both the federal and provincial governments enables and it’s the first agreement of its kind in Canada. I expect other provinces are going to follow if they’re willing to step up the way Quebec has.”

He explained that previous efforts to stimulate investment by internet service providers (ISPs) fell short of comprehensive coverage due to the way the programs were set up.

“The way it worked before is, you’d have different internet service providers whether it was Picanoc or Bell or Videotron, whoever, ISPs come to the government and propose a project, they would be in control of what was being proposed, they would propose what roadway, what municipality, what residences …” he explained. “What that yielded, was not, quite often, not comprehensive because they wouldn’t propose comprehensive [projects] … They would be hooking people up that weren’t hooked up, that’s all good, but from my perspective it was always lacking in terms of comprehensiveness.”

Under the new framework, the province will negotiate with the ISPs to deliver coverage in specific sub-regions, with hard deadlines and financial penalties if they don’t hit the governments’ target of September 2022 completion. Amos explained that they would be explicitly delegating which areas would be covered.

“Those negotiations are ongoing, so instead of receiving a proposal from an ISP, we’ll be telling them what to hook up and they won’t be able to cherry pick certain roads but not others,” he said. “They’re going to have to do the whole darn region. Whatever region they’re allocated, they’ve got to do it all, and they have a deadline of September 2022. And that deadline is backed by financial penalties.”

In a previous interview, Amos had spoken about his frustration at the slow roll out of internet connections, and said that the new format would ensure a timely completion.

“We made announcements in 2018 and 2019 and it was for completion in 2021,” he said. “That’s understandable because it takes a little while, but … the financial incentive structure wasn’t sufficiently aligned to ensure completion in a timely manner. So we’ve learned from the experience. Quebec and Canada, every province has learned from this experience.”

The Connexion Fibre Picanoc (CFP) project, which is a joint venture between the MRCs of Vallée de la Gatineau and Pontiac, was mentioned in the documents provided in the announcement, and CFP president Bernard Roy said that they weren’t currently in discussions with the province. They had previously made an application to the federal government’s Universal Broadband Fund, the Quebec portion of which was folded into the Operation High Speed envelope.

“A small portion of Picanoc’s project had been previously granted (located in MRC Vallée-de-la-Gatineau), we are now evaluating this opportunity,” he wrote in an email. “Otherwise, we are not currently in discussions with the province.”

He added that households in the Pontiac being connected within 18 months was “great news.”

Amos was extremely proud of the announcement and what it would mean for the Pontiac.

“This is fundamentally paradigm shifting for our region,” he said.

“I would argue that this is the single most important infrastructure investment in Pontiac’s history and I challenge you or anyone else to point to a more significant one.”

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