Thank you very much. Good morning.

My name is Robin Jones, I am the mayor of the village of Westport. I'm the warden of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, and I am the chair of the Eastern Ontario Wardens' Caucus. I'm here with my colleague, Jim Pine, who is the CAO of Hastings County.

When we talk about wardens, we're not talking about the correctional system. In the province of Ontario we have many two-tier municipalities. The upper tier consists of the counties in our part of the world, and the warden is elected from the mayors of that county. The Eastern Ontario Wardens' Caucus is all the upper tier and two large municipalities in eastern Ontario. We represent 103 municipalities across eastern Ontario. There are only 444 in Ontario, so we represent a large number of constituents.

I'm here today to talk about a project that we are hoping for some support on. Over the past 18 years, the wardens' caucus has pursued policies and projects that improve the economic health of its member communities. In 2010, we formed a not-for-profit organization called the Eastern Ontario Regional Network, which we will likely refer to with the acronym EORN. The purpose of EORN was to support the region's quality of life and economic development through improved connectivity for rural eastern Ontario. From 2010 to 2014, EORN built a $175-million network that improved broadband access to about 90% of the people in eastern Ontario. This was an innovative public-private partnership, which included the federal government, provincial and municipal governments, and private service providers.

In 2018, we are now moving to the next milestone, which is to improve access to cellular and mobile broadband services in eastern Ontario. Should you think it's not that bad, my municipality is about 45 minutes north of Kingston, and I have probably five to 10 minutes in that route when I will have dependable cellular service. This isn't just north of Highway 7. This is throughout eastern Ontario. We know we hit a wall when we come out of Toronto when we lose the cellular mobile opportunities. This is the number one issue for the politicians in eastern Ontario. It is the number one linchpin in our economic stability.

To let you know that we don't come with complaints without solutions, Mr. Pine will give the solutions.

Transcript

Discussions (0)