CAP cuts will broaden the digital divide, say critics

OTTAWA—Critics say Industry Canada’s cuts to the Community Access Program (CAP)—at times the only source of Internet access for rural communities—will broaden the digital divide and put communities at risk of falling further behind in the digital economy. “All across the country, it will have some devastating effects,” Marita Moll, a board member of Telecommunities Canada, an organization that promotes community development through network access, told The Wire Report. The CAP was created in 1995 to give Canadians access to the Internet and technical know-how at community centres, schools, libraries and standalone CAP sites. Industry Canada sent letters March 9 to thousands of CAP sites around the country that said it will cut funding for the vast majority of them. “Our support, which will continue until March 31, 2011, will target those CAP sites that do not have access to a publicly funded library within 25 kilometres,” an Industry Canada letter said. Moll said the program has achieved significant results at a cost of $14 million per year. She added that there are more than 3,000 CAP sites across Canada, a majority of which are at least 25 kilometres from the nearest public library. Most of the sites will lose their funding in 2011, she said. In Prince Edward Island, she said, the cuts will put an end to all CAP sites on the island because they are all at least 25 kilometres from the nearest library. Moll noted that she does not know exactly how many of the sites will close shop because the word “library” is not well defined in the Industry Canada letter. “If the federal government is going to cut funding to anything that has the word library attached to it, that puts us in a very tight position here,” Cheryl Deforest, executive director of the Smart Communities Society, which manages CAP sites in the Northwest Territories, said in an interview. Moll said Industry Canada has framed the cuts within the context of Internet access, but the CAP sites support learning and training programs. Through the CAP Youth Initiative program, her organization hires teenagers part-time who assist people with computers and technology, she said. “It has a big ripple effect in the community,” Deforest said. Rodger Cuzner, a Liberal MP from the largely rural riding of Cape-Breton-Canso, NS, criticized the federal government for making the cuts during Parliament’s question period Monday. “For many people in rural communities their only line of communication into the virtual world,” Cuzner told The Wire Report on the Hill. Staring down a $54-billion deficit, federal government is now looking to reel in spending and balancing the books. Opposition critics say the government’s plan to freeze departmental spending will affect programs. “We extended that program until the time came when public libraries had Internet, and most people live very close to a public library, within 25 kilometres,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of Science and Technology, said during question period. Goodyear added that 80 per cent of Canadians currently have access to the Internet at home. But Cuzner said “the numbers are so skewed to urban areas that it’s not a fair fact.” The Industry Canada letter said there is less of a need for CAP sites because most Canadians have access to broadband Internet at home, work, school, or at the local library. “An estimated 8 in 10 Canadians presently use the Internet on a regular basis,” the letter said. “In addition, alternative forms of public Internet access are now available throughout most of Canada.” jmigneault@thewirereport.ca

CAP cuts will broaden the digital divide, say critics

News | March 15, 2010

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