Manitoban MP sets goal to get rural Canada connected

Included in the portfolio of MP Dan Mazier is connectivity in rural Canada. The Minister of Parliament for Dauphin, Swan River, Neepawa says rural communities like Portage la Prairie and area are getting 5G under certain conditions. 

He says rural Canada needs this technology.
 
"It's kind of interesting that we could go to 5G if the City of Portage wanted to go to 5G," notes Mazier. "It's just another generation. G stands for generation. The fourth generation was basically the LTE, which brought in the ability for us to get emergency notifications on our cell phones. 5G is like a big pipeline of information. You can transmit huge amounts of information over the 5G -- 5th Generation -- network, but it doesn't travel as long and as far. It's made for information. Or it's for those who simply want to talk on the phone."

The Portage la Prairie area and the RM are currently involved in a co-op connectivity program using fibre optics. 

"We could go back to different frequencies, a different type of generation stuff, and just say, 'Hey, look. I want to be connected when I'm driving to Brandon,' or, 'I'm on a highway somewhere. I just want to talk on my phone if I got a flat tire. I can phone somebody and they can help me out.' It's a question of what expectations Canadians want when they're out traveling around in Canada. That's where I think we need to get it."

He explains Dauphin, Swan River, Neepawa is basically everything west of Lake Manitoba, and then #1 Highway, and 200 miles north of Swan River. Red Deer Lake is the northern border which is the size of Nova Scotia.

"We have 38 municipalities, 14 First Nations and 28 Hutterite colonies, actually," notes Mazier. "The National Park is right in the middle of it. You can imagine over 200 communities. I've been asking the municipalities about their connectivity plan. Some have created fibre co-ops. I know there's one over in the Shoal Lake area and is doing very well."

Mazier says other communities are not interested in that route and are focusing on their roads instead. 

"There are lots of different examples of how we can make this work in our rural areas, but I think we need to start having conversations as communities and see what we want," notes Mazier. "The technology is there. We can do it. If we want to throw some money toward it in our mill rate, well then let's have that discussion. But it's there and it's just as long as there's not legislation standing in the way, or big companies tying up spectrum. There's a whole bunch of different conversations that we're having right now to try to understand the file, and what's standing in the way of a normal Canadian getting cell phone service in rural Canada. How do we make it happen?"

He explains there are other factors that must be considered, including communities in valleys or small towns such as Rapid City with a just a few hundred residents.

"Minnedosa happens to be in a valley, and they don't quite have good enough cell phone service, for example, or the service providers don't come in." continues Mazier. "Why couldn't the local community tap into the main line that's going by, and have a small broadband network in there? What's wrong with that model? It would work. It would work in Canada. Several communities have proved it does work."

Mazier says mines or hog operations can bear the burden and help the community. He refers to a company in PEI where an amusement park is involved in Cavendish.

"It brings in a massive crowd. In 90 days, 400,000 people go through his theme park, and they couldn't get service," adds Mazier. "The big guys wouldn't come into PEI. He said, 'Well, fine. I'll just tap into the network and start working.' He created his own network and he's going to help the community out. It's a lot like areas just outside of national parks. It becomes a tourism Mecca, then it shrinks right back down again after that 90 days. But he needs huge capacity for 100 days of the year to run, as a whole, back to the commerce part of it. He needs to know exactly how many people are in the theme park to optimize all that. That's all business stuff -- why he needed the Internet and why he needed Wi-Fi services. He brought it in and then the community benefits from that for the rest of the year."

Mazier says there are businesses out there that can help in that manner. He adds his job in Ottawa is to help tie everybody together, and they've initiated several types of these conversations.