Statistics Canada reports that rural Canadians lag significantly behind urban Canadians in use of the internet for personal communication.
It is hardly a surprise to Donald Johnson, a rural Alberta politician and president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties.
“I would say it is largely the lack of accessibility,” he said. “We have to start pushing on that locally and nationally. We will do that.”
As chair of the rural forum of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Johnson said he has urged federal and provincial governments to make rural high-speed internet accessibility a priority.
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This week, he meets federal secretary of state for rural issues Christian Paradis to make the point. Next summer, a national rural forum in Edmonton will highlight the issue.
“The rural economy is very important to Canada and without access to internet, that economy is handicapped,” he said. “This is a national issue.”
The Statistics Canada report argued that a digital divide exists between rural and urban Canada.
An estimated 68 percent of adult Canadians used the internet for personal communication in 2005 with use rates as high as 77 percent in Ottawa-Gatineau and Calgary.
In rural and small town Canada, on average only 58 percent of adults reported using the internet for nonwork reasons, according to a survey of more than 30,000 Canadians.
Analysts from Statistics Canada and Industry Canada warned that the digital divide is eroding rural Canada’s ability to compete for industry, services and population.
“The infrastructure of the internet, like the electrical grid, induces major changes economically, socially and politically,” said the report.
“The longer communities and individuals in Canada stall in their accessibility, adoption and effective use of the internet, the less competitive they may become relative to those with more aggressive adoption and use rates.”
The odds that an urban adult resident will use the internet are almost one and a half times greater than are the odds of rural use.
Larry McKeown of the science, innovation and electronic information division of Statistics Canada and one of the report authors, said the internet holds the promise of helping rural Canada overcome the disadvantage of distance from markets, customers and services.
“But instead, because of low adaptation, it actually is making it worse,” he said.
“The distance disadvantage is being compounded by a technology disadvantage.”
The researchers concluded that the most important factor influencing internet use is education levels. Canadians with post secondary education are much more likely to use the internet than people with a high school education.
In general, education levels are higher in urban centres than in rural areas.
“Many rural people who get higher education then leave so it becomes a bit of a vicious cycle,” McKeown said.
Higher income households are also more likely to report internet use.
As recently as 2005, 47 percent of Canadian communities, mainly rural and small towns, did not have access to broadband high-speed service.
“That is the real problem,” Johnson said.
“High speed is such a critical component for business, for on-line distance education, for everything. Depending on dial-up is frustrating.”
More than half a decade ago, then-industry minister Brian Tobin said broadband service would be extended throughout rural Canada. Little progress has been made.
Part of the problem, said Johnson and the Statistics Canada report, is the debate over whether the service should be provided by public or private sectors.
Last year, an Industry Canada telecommunications policy review panel recommended that market forces be the main driver.
“But it also called for government interventions to ensure that all communities have access to broadband services by 2010,” noted the report.
Johnson said a further complication is that under the constitution, municipalities are creatures of the provinces and the federal government has been reluctant to deal directly with municipalities where internet infrastructure investment is required.
