Bragg Creek was privileged to have the Honourable Minister for Service Alberta, Nate Glubish, make a last minute stop on an information gathering tour pertaining to the challenges of rural internet services.
This tour is acting on the federal government’s mandate for 90% of all Canadians to have access to “high speed” Internet of 50mps down, and 10mps up, by 2021.
Those in attendance were encouraged that MLA Miranda Rosin requested leaders committed to creating solutions from Bragg Creek, Springbank, and the Priddis region be invited. Minister Glubish verbally recognized the need to partner with local groups in an effort to discover and understand what is possible and how we can utilize existing infrastructure and partners to accomplish our goal of better communications infrastructure.
It is no secret that current Internet service is far behind the required capacity to support any major economic growth in the area. We appreciate Miranda’s commitment to her constituents in recognizing this gap, and putting the area on the tour. Although the current administration is endeavouring to get up to speed (pun intended), we trust that we can move past information gathering, and quickly start taking steps of action to realize this goal. Our local area, and our province, have an opportunity to show National leadership in this area, and provide an example of what can happen with volunteers, industry, municipal and provincial governments working together.
In the meantime, the local groups will continue to drive forward, self-advocating, and collaborating with one another, for the services required.
Lowell Harder,
Editor, HCN
