Rural Ontario frets over Internet access:
Province suspends funding to programs

Source: The Goble & Mail- Page B10
By JACK KAPICA

August 5, 2004 -- Small and remote Ontario communities may have to put development plans on hold in the wake of the provincial government's suspension of funding for programs designed to bring broadband Internet to the entire province.

The two programs -- Connect Ontario: Partnering for Smart Communities (COPSC) and Connect Ontario: Broadband Regional Access Program (COBRA) -- were created in 2000. They're part of a five-year program to deliver high-speed Internet service and develop community portals in underserviced areas.

The programs were meant to foster the spread of broadband to help businesses in smaller communities and remote areas enter the global economy, to give students access to on-line resources and courses, speed the exchange of data among hospitals and health care organizations, and offer people access to on-line government services.

The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, which administered the programs, would not say whether funding will ever be reinstated under the current government.

According to ministry spokesman Neil Trotter, COBRA had invested $2.8-million in three community programs across the province so far, while COPSC funding totalled $11.12-million for 11 programs. No figures were available regarding how many proposed projects were awaiting funding approval when the programs were frozen.

Mr. Trotter also said that David Caplan, Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal, is reviewing all aspects of Ontario's infrastructure -- roads, schools, hospitals and public transit systems -- and may include broadband Internet in that list.

That review should outline the current government's 10-year infrastructure plan, Mr. Trotter said. The ministry review will be published later this year, he added, "but it's not certain at this point whether broadband will be part of that."

The lack of commitment is worrying to groups such as the Regional Networks of Ontario (RNO), a coalition that promotes broadband for small communities.Joan Bongard is an RNO regional director and head of HQNet, a non-profit organization promoting broadband in the Halton-Quinty region. These days, she says businesses considering a move to her region demand broadband service before they will locate in a community.

Ms. Bongard says her area was one of 11 communities that received funding from the COPSC program, but she worries about other communities that have received none so far, or that had projects awaiting approval. "It's been a long road getting to the point that government does see broadband as infrastructure," she said.

Linda Rickard, an RNO member representing the Technology Alliance Group for Kawartha Lakes, says she lives in a "high-need area," with huge discrepancies in the availability and reliability of broadband. She says that with so many business operations now tied to Internet-based programs and resources, companies and branch offices in the region desperately need reliable broadband.

"A lot of people don't know what smaller places have to cope with," Ms. Rickard says. "The Internet is becoming an [essential piece of] infrastructure, like hydro."

But the end of the COPSC and COBRA funding does not necessarily leave Ontario's outlying regions mired in the dark-fibre ages. Several community projects have done well without drawing on the two programs -- among them K-Net, a Northern Ontario native broadband network, which has been so successful that its system has been studied by groups from Brazil and Australia, which wish to emulate it.

To K-Net director Brian Beaton, COPSC and COBRA were too bureaucratic and urban-oriented to be of much use in many cases. "You just try to get an application through that process."

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