Rural Canada’s voice in cabinet says feds looking at funding community ISPs

A new plan to help rural Canada thrive will focus on expanding internet and cellphone coverage, even funding communities that want to be their own service providers, the minister in charge of it says. Rural Economic Development Minister Bernadette Jordan is expected to unveil the strategy next month.In an interview this week, Jordan said the top complaint she hears on cross-country travels is the lack of high-speed internet in rural areas, which hurts businesses and efforts to woo and keep residents.The House of Commons emphasized that concern on Thursday, when its members unanimously backed a motion from a Liberal MP calling for expanded digital infrastructure in rural areas for economic and public-safety reasons. The motion highlighted struggles local officials faced in responding to flooding in place with poor cellphone coverage.The Liberals are promising to connect every household in the country to high-speed internet by 2030, through a $6-billion spending plan. Jordan said the government wants to entice big telecommunications companies to invest in rural areas, where populations are smaller and more spread-out than in urban centres.