After reading a story in this past weekend’s National Post, I wonder if it is time to rethink how we fund rural broadband.
I have long questioned the need to apply universal subsidies. The Post story speaks of the boom in rural Canada, led by surging crop prices over the past year and a half.
You now see satellite dishes on farms because people need access to the Internet and international grain markets. Farms are doing those things themselves, instead of relying on others, because the technology allows them to do that.
There is a need to facilitate broadband in rural Canada, but not necessarily to subsidize it.
Maybe Canada needs to look at targeting broadband subsidies based on income, regardless of where people live. There is a gap in the level of connectedness among lower income Canadians in urban markets as well. Maybe it is time to consider making PCs and broadband part of our social welfare system.
Will a broadband tax credit be a part of the next federal budget?
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