Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a C$1.75 billion ($1.35 billion) investment to help connect citizens to high-speed internet across the country, grow businesses and create jobs.
“As we continue to deal with the global Covid-19 pandemic, Canadians have needed to rely on the internet to help connect them to work, school, government resources, and loved ones,” Xinhua news agency quoted Trudeau as saying at a press conference here on Monday.
The investment is designed to connect 98 per cent of Canadians across the country to high-speed internet by 2026, with the goal of connecting all by 2030.
Announced originally in the 2019 Budget as C$1 billion, the additional funding of C$750 million for the Universal Broadband Fund will help advance projects with partners, like the Canada Infrastructure Bank, to connect households and businesses in under-served communities over the next six years.
This includes C$150 million in Rapid Response Stream with an accelerated application process to allow shovel-ready projects to get started right away.
“With today’s announcement, our government has made C$6.2 billion available for universal broadband since 2015,” Trudeau said.
The Prime Minister also announced an agreement of C$600 million with Canadian satellite company Telesat to improve connectivity and expand high-speed internet coverage to the far north, rural, and remote regions across the country, through low-earth-orbit satellite capacity.
The Universal Broadband Fund was also announced in the 2019 Budget.
It is part of a series of federal investments made to improve access to high-speed internet, which are expected to connect nearly 400,000 additional households by the end of 2023.