Progressive Conservative MLA Kathy Bockus made an impassioned plea for the government to improve rural cell phone service during a recent session of the Standing Committee on Estimates and Fiscal Policy in the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly.
It came after a response by Finance Minister René Legacy in which Bockus wanted to clarify the timeline for improving cell phone service in rural areas.
“If we were to fix everything right now, it would cost over $100 million,” Legacy said. “It’ll take multiple years to do it.”
She said she wanted to stress and plead with him to finish it as quickly as possible.
“Because in rural areas, improved cell phone service is not a convenience, it’s a matter of life and death,” Bockus said, becoming emotional.
She said several years ago, a young man was killed in a car crash in a wooded area in her riding.
“And nobody could find him,” she said. “He was late getting home. So, his family started a search and they found him 24 hours later, just by chance, he had made it out of his car and he was found dead at the rear of his car, but he had his cell phone in his hand.
“So if he had been able to reach somebody, would he still be alive?”
She asked the minister to not only think about facts and figures, but about people.
“I know you do, think people,” she said.
There are only four major options for cell phone service in New Brunswick: Bell, Rogers, Telus, and Eastlink. Some have more affordable brands, like Koodo and Virgin Mobile.
Legacy said his riding in north-eastern New Brunswick is also “terrible” for cell phone coverage. He is the MLA for Bathurst.
“The member is absolutely right. That’s why we want to start working toward it,” he said.
He said the government is in communication with the big tech companies, saying the technology has advanced.
“I have high hopes that we’re going to see solutions that are going to come around that are going to be durable that will provide that link to the world in our rural areas,” he said.
Bockus said the Hemlock Knoll Landfill site has offered free land to the province for any telecommunications company that wishes to put up a tower.
During public accounts in February, Liberal Miramichi Bay-Neguac MLA Sam Johnston also questioned the plan for rural connectivity improvement.
“I have heard many complaints from my constituents and the Miramichi region in general about chronic connectivity issues, especially in rural areas,” he said.
He asked Finance and Treasury Board Deputy Minister Travis Bergin what areas had been prioritized for cellular service improvements.
His response, initially reported by Brunswick News, indicated that gaps in cell coverage exist everywhere in New Brunswick – some small, others for up to 15 or 20 minutes.
“We looked at it as a provincial holistic approach, where there could be up to 50, 60, 70 different locations that could benefit from a brand new cell tower,” Bergin said.
According to Bergin, the province owns about 50 communication towers.
“We’re talking to carriers every week around this,” he said. “Our mobile contract for the provincial public service came up for renewal last year, and we were the first province to include a value-added component in that RFP.”
Bergin explained that it added a metric for more towers or enhancing the current government-owned towers for improved service, and those carriers who included it would be given extra points toward getting the contract in the end.
“There has not been an award yet … but I’m optimistic that would be the first set of wins we have,” he said.
The Department said it identified a roughly 15 per cent gap in cell coverage in its research across New Brunswick.
