REGINA and SASKATOON – Industry Minister David Emerson touched on the telecommunications sector in speeches to the Regina and Saskatoon Chambers of Commerce today.
Calling telecom a “critical priority”, Emerson added “information and communications technologies (ICT) represent the single largest contributors to productivity and competitive improvements in recent years. Here in Canada and in other countries, ICT related investments accounted for approximately 75% of productivity improvements. But we’re still falling short of the U.S.”
He touched on the Telecom Policy Review panel, which is to file its report by year’s end. Its goal “is to foster competition; stronger infusion of ICT technology throughout the economy and to ensure that Canada’s telecommunications industry is both a global leader, and a powerful catalyst for technological transformation across this country,” he said.
“Industry Canada is also in the final stages of the development of a sector strategy for the ICT sector more generally,” added Emerson.
“Canada has shown real leadership in supporting and providing the electronic infrastructure required to fully participate in the global information economy. We’ve extended broadband to hundreds of Canadian communities and we’ve supported super broadband connectivity among schools, universities and research organizations in Canada and internationally.”
But much remains to be connected, he continued. “We have hundreds of rural and remote communities, many of them aboriginal, which do not have high speed Internet access. It is absolutely essential that broadband access be extended further into remote and isolated communities. Without Internet access today, a community is simply not able to join the economic mainstream, or even to fully access opportunities for health care and education.
“We need to finish the job.”
