B.C.’s Premier says the province’s broadband initiative will be expanded into rural and remote communities so that people can access government benefits that are available because of COVID-19.

John Horgan made that comment when asked by Radio NL about concerns that some people aren’t able to get the information or services they need to weather this pandemic, because of a lack of viable internet options where they live.

“This ties in nicely with the announcement we made around health delivery in rural and remote communities,” Horgan said. “The isolation, the distances of British Columbia are vast, and they are made all the more vast when we think about the challenges of accessing services in a time of pandemic.”

As students transition to a virtual learning model because schools have been shut, Horgan says this internet expansion will benefit students in the province.

“It will make sure that every family has access to the technology that they need to participate fully in virtual classrooms,” Horgan added.

“You have this expectation that everyone has access to computers, that’s not the case, and so we want to make sure that we are providing the tools that students need so that they can continue learning.”

According to the CRTC, 92 per cent of B.C. households have access to internet speeds of 50 Mbps. Across rural B.C., just 36 per cent of communities and 38 per cent of rural Indigenous communities have access to those kinds of broadband internet speeds.

Horgan admits COVID-19 has been a wake-up call that has highlighted the vast differences in technology that people in urban and rural areas of B.C. have access to.

“Although we think of ourselves as a small jurisdiction clinging onto the west coast of North America looking out to the Pacific Ocean, we have vast distances and those distances often times are not covered by the technologies that we anticipate that we are going to be able to access in urban centres,” he added.