Jackson is a student at the University of Regina.
Coming from a farm family background, I couldn’t agree more with Statistic Canada’s findings that rural Canadians lag significantly behind urban Canada in use of the internet for personal communication, (Digital divide worsening in Canada, says Statscan, WP, Sept. 20.)
I went from Kindergarten to Grade 12 without access to high-speed internet on the family farm.
However, the digital divide is the least of worries for residents of rural Canada. It is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the rural-urban split.
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The gap widens when farm families are compared to those in towns and cities. I thought it was typical of Statistics Canada to point out the obvious and politicians such as Donald Johnson to jump on a rather slow-moving bandwagon.
A national rural forum will take place in Edmonton in the summer of 2008 to address this problem.
Unfortunately, technology does not move at the snail’s pace that the government does when dealing with most issues affecting rural Canada.
In rural areas, for many years now, technology has lagged behind our urban neighbours. Towns and farms, restricted by limited technological advances, have suffered with antiquated telephone party lines until as recently as 1976.
At the same time, in larger centres, people didn’t have to tolerate the party line. They were enjoying private conversations on more modern telephones.
Also, on our farm, it has only been during the last 10 years that I could call the town where I attended school without paying long-distance charges.
Further evidence of the gap between rural and urban areas is the lack of good cellphone coverage in rural areas. In our community there are many areas with no cell coverage, even for police or medical emergencies.
We supposedly live in civilized southern Saskatchewan, only 120 kilometres from a major city and 30 km from the Trans-Canada Highway. Everywhere we call on our cell phone is long distance, even to our closest neighbour, who lives one km up the road.
To have one cellphone in rural Saskatchewan can easily cost more than $250 a month with only average use.
Also, if a farm family wants to receive high-speed internet, they have to erect a $500 tower, mount $700 worth of hardware on it and pay $600 a month for service.
This is another expensive option when rural incomes are already falling behind urban incomes.
The article cites a lack of education as the reason rural people do not use the internet but fails to mention the fact that rural Canada has a population largely made up of the elderly.
The young people, who use the internet, leave rural areas for urban centres to further their education or find jobs.
The aging population that remains is little interested in high-speed internet, even if it were available and affordable.
Politicians should be fighting for what the elderly population is concerned about: better medical access.
Where I live, basic medical care is 35 km away and emergency medical care is 120 km. At our local hospital, you can’t be admitted over the weekend because of nursing shortages.
Another point Donald Johnson makes is that the “digital divide is eroding rural Canada’s ability to compete for industry services and population.”
He talked about the internet being a necessary part of the infrastructure, like the electrical grid.
However, aren’t railroads, schools, elevators, hospitals, roads, banks and post offices part of our rural infrastructure?
Are these components not necessary to “compete for industry, services, and populations?”
Where were the politicians when rural communities were fighting to keep these services in place?
In the WP story, Christian Paradis, federal secretary of state for rural issues, says access to the internet “is a national issue.”
Clearly, internet access is the least of the problems facing rural residents.
Government and Statistics Canada would do better addressing some of the more pressing issues facing rural Canada if we are ever to keep pace with our urban counterparts.
