The accelerating world has left too many of our regions in a no man’s land technological. We are still surprised, in 2022, to travel the roads of Quebec and “lose the signal” in the middle of a telephone discussion. For the inhabitants of the big cities, these situations generate funny anecdotes to tell, but for the people of the regions, it becomes more and more difficult to bear.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
To be convinced of this, just imagine the city of Montreal without cellular service; how could its economy work? How could it compete with its rivals? Can we imagine neighborhoods served while others are not? To ask these questions is to understand what the majority of the 1020 members of the Fédération québécoise des municipalités (FQM) are going through.
Governments must imperatively put an end to the absurdity of an unequal, faulty cell phone service that seriously hinders the development of our regions, when it does not threaten the very safety of citizens.
Providing all regions with the same infrastructure essential to their development is not a question of jurisdiction, but of leadership and political will.
High-speed internet has demonstrated this. The federal government is responsible for the legal and regulatory framework for communications, but it was Quebec that took the lead in launching Operation High Speed, because that is development. The will of the current Premier of Quebec, François Legault, was also remarkable in this regard: his flagship commitment in 2018 to connect all Quebecers to high-speed Internet in the present mandate and his decision to repatriate to his office the government staff associated with this file will make it possible to achieve the objectives set for next September. His determination will also have led Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to associate his government with the Quebec approach by announcing an investment of $417 million on March 22, 2021.
As with high-speed internet, the solution is now. Indeed, the deployment of fiber now makes cellular service possible throughout Quebec at a reasonable cost. Also, we must take advantage of the situation to make Quebec the only region in North America equipped with the most modern means of communication currently available. Quebecers are creative!
Imagine the economic potential of the regions if they were completely connected by the Internet and the cellular network.
We outline the need to robotize certain operations in order to improve the productivity of our sectors of activity; imagine the possible gains in the fields of agriculture, forestry, maple syrup, mining and many others! Messrs. Legault and Trudeau understood this well and it is for this reason that they joined forces last year. Our discussions allowed us to understand that the same openness exists for cellular coverage, thus confirming that the development and occupation of territories are possible when the two levels of government agree.
The cellular network will be the priority for the regions for the next few years. As spokesperson for the regions, the FQM will submit its budget requests to the Quebec Minister of Finance in the coming days and this file will be at the top of the list. In this document, we will indicate that we must first produce a real portrait of the situation and then proceed in stages. If an accurate and complete mapping of coverage had been done from the outset for high-speed Internet, the file would have been resolved much more quickly. We need to map all regions to identify areas that remain to be covered. Thereafter, it will be much easier to effectively deploy the right technology in key locations. Our budget document will therefore contain a request for a commitment so that everyone has rapid access to cellular service. This subject will also be the key element of our electoral platform for the next Quebec elections, and the 1020 members of the Federation will then be mobilized to ask the candidates to take a position on the subject.
High-speed internet and cell phone coverage are now as essential to development as road development and electrification were in their day. Quebec has never been so well positioned, we must go ahead and take the lead!
*Mayor of Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley and prefect of the MRC de Memphrémagog
Read Ariane Krol’s article in the News section