High-speed Internet: Quebec promises to connect the Great Northern by optical fiber

Photo Stevens LeBlanc
The prime minister Philippe Couillard unveiled Wednesday a digital strategy in Quebec.

Pascal Dugas Drone

Wednesday, 13 December 2017 16:42

UPDATE
Wednesday, 13 December 2017 16:46

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QUEBEC | gouvernement Couillard promises to build within five years a submarine cable network optical fibre for many hundreds of kilometres in order to provide high speed Internet to the villages in the far North of quebec.

This is one of the promises made by the prime minister on Wednesday, when he announced that 100 % of Quebeckers, regardless of their place of residence, have the right to high speed Internet over the next few years.

“In the amount indicated today, there is a significant share of which will be invested for the Nord-du-Québec to provide Internet access to these communities,” stated the prime minister Philippe Couillard, during the unveiling of the digital strategy in Quebec, on Wednesday.

“Everyone, everywhere, will be covered”, a summary the member of parliament for Roberval.

In total, $ 400 million will be invested by the government of Québec over the next five years to achieve this ambitious target, without counting the contribution of Ottawa, which amounted to several hundreds of millions of dollars.

Islanders

As for the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, in another region particularly remote from major centres, Mr. Couillard recalled that his government intends to renovate or replace the submarine cable of optical fiber that will connect the archipelago to the mainland.

The cost of this last operation is for the moment unknown, but it should be financed from the envelope of $ 400 million provided by Québec.

Overall, the digital strategy involves investment of $ 1.5 billion over five years, including $ 500 million have already been announced.

By this strategy, Québec intends to facilitate the transition to digital of the municipalities, to allow the citizens to interact digitally with the health care network and promote québec culture on the digital networks.

The minister of Economy, Dominique Anglade, and sees it as a way to rally around a common project of the important actors of the society that believes in the digital future.

“The goal of this strategy is to make part of the puzzle. What we didn’t want, is to have pieces of puzzles which wander around”, she illustrated.