THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, September 16, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met with videoconference this day at 5:02 p.m. [ET] to study matters relating to minority-language health services; and in camera, for consideration of a draft agenda (future business).
Senator René Cormier(Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Good evening, colleagues. I am René Cormier, senator from New Brunswick, and chair of the Senate Committee on Official Languages.
[English]
Before we begin, I would like to ask all senators and other in-person participants to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents. Please make sure to keep your earpiece away from all microphones at all times. When you are not using your earpiece, place it face down on the sticker placed on the table for this purpose. Thank you for your cooperation.
[Translation]
Now, I wish to invite committee members to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Moncion: Good evening. Lucie Moncion from Ontario.
Senator Clement: Bernadette Clement from Ontario.
Senator Mégie: Marie-Françoise Mégie from Quebec.
The Chair: Welcome, dear colleagues, and welcome to viewers across the country who may be watching. I would like to point out that I am taking part in this meeting from within the unceded Traditional Territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation.
Tonight, we continue our study on minority-language health services by welcoming witnesses able to address the themes of telemedicine and new technologies, as well as research and evidence, two of the seven themes of our study.
To begin, we welcome in person officials from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada: Mr. Andre Arbour, Director General, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, and Ms. Josie Brocca, Director General, Spectrum and Telecommunications Sector.
Good evening and thank you for accepting our invitation. We will now hear your opening remarks. They will be followed by questions from the senators.
The floor is yours, Mr. Arbour.
[English]
Andre Arbour, Director General, Telecommunications and Internet Policy Branch, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the committee today.
I would first like to acknowledge that I am speaking today from the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin people. I would also like to thank them for being stewards of the land and waters in this area since time immemorial.
I am Andre Arbour, Director General of the Telecommunications and Internet Policy Branch at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. I am joined today by Josie Brocca, Director General of the Connected Canada Branch, responsible for the Universal Broadband Fund. We are pleased to speak to the issue of high-speed internet as an enabler of access to services.
Internet access permeates nearly every facet of everyday life, whether it is paying bills, making online purchases, running a business, communicating with loved ones or accessing government services. In the context of the committee’s study, this includes enabling access to telemedicine.
[Translation]
In June 2019, the Government published Canada’s first pan-Canadian broadband strategy entitled High-Speed Access for All: Canada’s Connectivity Strategy. In support of the Strategy, goals have been set out for 90% of households to have high-speed access by 2021, 98% by 2026, and 100% by 2030. The strategy includes target speeds of 50 megabits per second download and 10 megabits per second upload or “50/10”.
The Government has made investments to meet this goal, including the commitment of $3.2 billion through the Universal Broadband Fund, or the UBF, to expand internet access in rural and remote communities.
To date, confirmed UBF projects are anticipated to bring access to over 924,000 households across Canada. Through strong partnerships with provinces and the private sector, an additional $2 billion in provincial dollars has been leveraged and even more investment from companies to expand broadband access across the country.
[English]
The UBF is complemented by several other measures to promote access. For example, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Canada’s telecommunications regulator, administers a $675 million fund sourced from a levy on industry.
Investments in low-earth orbit satellites will help ensure that even the most challenging remote areas are connected, and we are making more spectrum frequencies available to support modern wireless services and implementing use-it or loss-it conditions for access to that spectrum so we can be sure it is being put to use.
We know Canadians rely on connectivity to access telemedicine. This was a consideration in the development of the strategy and programming.
Speeds of 50/10 megabits per second provide the bandwidth and quality of service needed for Canadians to take advantage of virtual medical consultations via voice or video call, access online databases and messaging applications, for example.
[Translation]
Furthermore, the target speed of 50/10 is only a minimum and the Strategy encourages faster speeds. For example, roughly 80% of UBF projects are supporting fibre-to-the-home or equivalent networks, capable of providing speeds over one gigabit per second. One gigabit is equal to 1,000 megabits. This is twenty times faster than the minimum. Fibre networks can support the capacity needs of larger health care facilities and more specialized uses.
There are inherent challenges to expanding telecommunications infrastructure across Canada’s large and diverse geography. These are complex projects that take time to design, go through permitting and then construct across a variety of rural and remote communities. Project proponents need to manage the relatively short Canadian build season and the logistics of construction in some very challenging areas.
[English]
However, we are seeing progress. In 2016, 84.5% of households had access to high-speed internet at the target speed. The government met its 90% connectivity goal in 2021. By the end of this year, we anticipate over 95% of Canadian households will be connected. We are on track to meet our next milestone of 98% by 2026. These results have been made possible through substantial investments and through cooperation and coordination across levels of government, with local communities and with internet service providers.
We know that we have a lot more to do. For the Canadians who still lack access to a quality internet connection, that improvement can’t come quickly enough. I do not mean to minimize the experience of those living in communities that are still underserved. However, transformational investments are well under way, and we are on track to meet the goals outlined in the connectivity strategy.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. That concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer your questions.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much for those opening remarks, Mr. Arbour. We will now move on to questions.
Colleagues, as usual, you’ll have five minutes each for an initial round, but you’ll have plenty of time to ask all your questions. Please indicate to whom your question is addressed, as that will help witnesses to answer.
Let’s begin with Senator Moncion, who now has the floor.
Senator Moncion: Welcome to this first meeting of the new session. Today is our first day back, and we’ve been looking forward to wearing our new clothes. You talked about connectivity, 95%, 98% and targets. How will this connectivity help in the areas of health care and language rights?
Mr. Arbour: Thank you for the question. The network speed that is being built supports the speeds required for telehealth. For example, a consultation with a doctor or nurse takes about five megabits per second. A 50-megabit-per-second connection provides a comfortable margin of error to support that type of service. The same goes for accessing an online database to find certain information, or for messaging applications, for example, with someone at the health centre.
For Canadians who would like to find someone who speaks another official language, there are more options online, of course. We’ve found, not only with telehealth, but with a variety of other services, that there are more options online, particularly in both official languages.
Senator Moncion: Thank you. We know that health care falls under provincial jurisdiction. In terms of your collaboration with the provinces, how is that relationship working? What pitfalls have you encountered?
Mr. Arbour: I can begin, and perhaps my colleague could continue.
Achieving our 100% result is a bit like doing a puzzle. We have a certain variety of projects across the country, and each of them must be managed in order to achieve the 100% rate and avoid overlap between projects, for example. Generally speaking, this goal is shared by the various levels of government. The relationships are good overall, and the program has established a certain partnership with the provinces — for the provincial broadband funds in particular.
Josie Brocca, Director General, Spectrum and Telecommunications Sector, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada: I can add a few things about the agreements. We had agreements with six provinces. One of the positive elements was that we could share the work. Some provinces have higher targets than we do. For the province of Quebec, it was 100% in 2022; for Ontario, it’s 100% in 2025 and for British Columbia and Alberta, it’s 100% in 2027.
With their help, we can connect more Canadians at a faster rate. What’s more, we were able to conclude partnerships worth over $2 billion. With these additional funds, we were able to install more fibre across the country. With fibre, speeds are faster and more applications can be used. We were more successful than we had imagined when we launched the fund, because all these partnerships were formed after the launch of UBF. Quebec was the first in April 2021, then Ontario in July 2021, and the others quickly followed. It was a way to establish connections more quickly with better speed.
Senator Moncion: For high-speed, everything is done over wires, because cables have to be installed. Is this the latest technology available, or will different technologies soon emerge?
Mr. Arbour: In a country like Canada, with its vast geography, a variety of technologies must be used. Fibre-optic networks are ideal, but they’re not necessarily sustainable, given the costs compared with the considerable operating costs. So the project generally favours three types of technology. We have fibre optics for around 80% of projects. We also have fixed wireless services, which are similar to cellular services, but with equipment installed in every home to ensure a solid connection. Finally, we have satellite technologies, notably with constellations of satellites in low Earth orbit, known as low Earth orbit satellites. Satellite systems are much more efficient than traditional technologies. For remote regions, access to satellite service is particularly important.
Senator Moncion: And much more expensive as well?
Mr. Arbour: Generally speaking, the costs for fibre investments are higher initially compared with satellite services, but you get more return and the capacity is greater. For a comparable cost, satellites offer a 50-megabit connection at an acceptable cost, but it’s really a choice between the possible return and the infrastructure’s viability. There’s a certain order of costs for construction, but for very remote areas, the operating costs are higher than the revenue from the infrastructure. That creates difficulties for the project’s viability and sustainability. The government’s objective is to organize projects and investments. For the path forward, it’s up to the private sector to continue these efforts.
Senator Moncion: Thank you, Mr. Arbour, and thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: Before turning the floor over to Senator Mégie, I have a follow-up question on agreements with the provinces.
Our committee is interested in official language minority communities. Do you have any data on whether or not official language minority communities in the various provinces have access to high-speed internet? Because of your relationship with the provinces, can you tell us if this data is identifiable?
Ms. Brocca: Thank you for the question. We don’t have that information in our agreements. The CRTC collects data every year on the number of households in official language minority communities that are connected. That number is slightly higher than for Canada as a whole.
We don’t collect that data, because our fund targets the households we’re going to connect. So we don’t have much information on residences as such, except for those on Indigenous reserves.
The Chair: If I’ve correctly understood, there is no specific data collected?
Ms. Brocca: Only from the CRTC. The current data goes back two years and is for 2022.
Senator Mégie: I’d like to thank the witnesses for joining us.
Senator Cormier asked one of my questions, but it doesn’t matter. I have other questions.
You work at a high technological level. I don’t know if it’s possible for you, since you’ve already said that you don’t have access to this data. I saw that one researcher recognized that this technology offers great potential for reducing language barriers. So I was wondering: How can one make such a claim when it’s hard to find the data? Someone might say that so many families in minority language situations have received such and such a service, but we don’t know how many haven’t, and it will be difficult to know.
How do you think health care services can be restructured on the basis of this data? Is that a possibility?
Mr. Arbour: Thank you for the question. With regard to the analysis of service availability and infrastructure, the data is relatively clear. As my colleague mentioned, for example, in 2022, 97 households in official-language minority communities had access to high-speed internet service, compared with 93% of the general population. The rate is therefore higher.
As for access to telehealth specifically, the barrier is not related to technology, but rather to health services. Among other things, there are issues with training, security, privacy and job regulations in the health care system. More research into the effectiveness of specific services in North America, including online mental health, for example, will have a positive impact on patients or clients of the system.
I don’t know if there is a systematic study for Canada in particular, in general. However, I’m not an expert in health care service delivery, but rather in telecommunications. There is literature on online health care services. Success depends on human factors, such as the training of the doctors or nurses who provide the service, and on the patient’s comfort level with the health care professional. It can take some time to get comfortable with online services. After the pandemic, we saw a considerable acceleration in comfort with online services, not just for health care services.
Senator Mégie: Thank you. I would like to ask another question.
We’re talking about 98% and 100%. We have set out a timeline. Let’s gaze into your crystal ball. Let’s suppose that 100% of people get connected and that your technology reaches people in the most remote rural communities. In terms of design — one of the things you work on is platform design — is there some method or some sort of literacy to ensure that the person who’s very far away, in a remote region, understands how to use this platform if they want to request health care? Not everyone has the level of literacy required to use these platforms. When you design your objectives, do you take the platform into account? Do you think about people lower literacy levels? You don’t have to look far to find people who don’t know how to navigate a platform.
Mr. Arbour: Thank you for the question. There are significant incentives for internet service providers to maximize their revenue and customer base. As an example, our project is with a service provider like Bell Canada or Rogers or serving the community in question. As such, there are incentives to maximize the number of subscribers in a community, not just to provide internet access.
Access to the provincial telehealth platform is both a matter of communication between the province and potential clients, and a matter of policy developed to provide such access. In my experience, the websites of the doctors or government ministries in question will list options for accessing the health care service. This is a mechanism that helps people know where to find the various options.
Senator Mégie: On the platforms, do you just use English?
Mr. Arbour: I’m sorry?
Senator Mégie: On the platforms you create.
[English]
Mr. Arbour: I would make a distinction between having access to the internet service specifically just to have access to the internet with having access to a specific health service. In terms of signing up just to have access to the internet globally, there is usually a publicity campaign that is handled by the service provider directly. When they build the network in the local community, they will want to have as many people as possible sign up, and they will have a number of mechanisms to encourage people to sign up: “The service is now available; we’ve built it; please have access to it.” If the question is, say, the Province of Ontario or Quebec having access to health care services online, it’s the province that offers that service directly, and it will be them that handles the publicity mechanism there. Forgive me if I’m not being clear.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you.
Ms. Brocca: There are also government programs that deal specifically with digital skills. Our department, ISED Canada, has a program for people with no digital skills whatsoever. There’s a fund available for that, and it’s aimed at informing and educating people who have never used the internet. We show them how to use it, how to protect their personal data and address their security concerns.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator. I want to ask more about this before giving the floor to Senator Clement. The program you mentioned is the digital literacy exchange program?
Ms. Brocca: That’s right.
The Chair: It’s intended for various groups, including official language minority communities. I was curious to know, first, who benefited from it? We’re talking about investments of $17.6 million in this program. Can you give us examples of program recipients in the context of official language minority communities, or OLMCs? Are you able to measure the impact of the program, positive or otherwise, on OLMCs?
Ms. Brocca: Thank you for the question. Yes, that’s the program. Unfortunately, I am not in charge of managing it. We can follow up on the question. If you want to know who the program recipients are, you will find them on public websites. Regarding the impacts on OLMCs more specifically, we can follow up after the meeting.
The Chair: If you could send us that information, it would be much appreciated and very useful for our study.
Senator Clement: Yes, it would be good if you could provide a follow-up. It would be quite useful for this study.
[English]
Thank you for your presentation. It was largely on connectivity, so I will ask a question about that. This study is much larger than that, but I will focus on what you presented.
You talked about 98% with goals of 100%. You talked about agreements with six provinces where you leverage their investments to greater effect. I’m wondering about the provinces and territories that are not included in that list and what happens to them. I’m interested in vulnerable communities in particular. For those 2% who are not covered yet, I imagine that they have even less access to health care and less success attracting doctors. They are probably communities in great need and don’t have that connectivity, and goals of 2027 or 2029 are not really helpful if people are sick. I wonder if you have looked at that or how your project factors into those really vulnerable communities.
Ms. Brocca: With respect to the provinces that we do have agreements with, as I said, it has helped us accelerate and provide more fibre, but our goal is to connect 100% of this country. So, we are equally connecting the houses in other provinces as well, and it is just that we happened to have leveraged additional funding from some of them.
For example, right now, we have calls for interest to open in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which are closing, actually, on September 27, because we didn’t receive enough applications to be able to connect all of the locations. So, it is not just because we have an agreement with a province that we are looking at that province.
In terms of the last 2%, yes, they are the most difficult to reach and the hardest to connect. It doesn’t mean they won’t get connected. It is just for us to be able to find the service providers and get the infrastructure built. As my colleague mentioned, our country is very large, our terrain is complicated, and we are being compounded by other factors, including extreme weather events and the fact that everybody is building this type of infrastructure at the same time so labour is difficult to find and permits are harder to get. There will be some areas that will just take us a little bit longer to get to.
In the interim, there are certain alternatives available. I will use the example of Nunavut. In December, the CRTC announced a project to connect all 25 communities through SSi Micro and a partnership with Starlink. So, while we are also building fibre connections in that territory, right now, as of December, they have an alternative connection that they could be using to access services that they need.
Senator Clement: Is that the same in all parts of —
Ms. Brocca: That is not true of every jurisdiction. That’s just one example of a project that is taking place through another fund that is enabling some of that last 2% to have access to something while other infrastructure is being built.
Senator Clement: And are you or whoever is trying to pilot that in those areas using that example and applying it elsewhere?
Ms. Brocca: The CRTC’s fund has calls for proposals on not what I would say is a regular basis, but they open them up every year or so. Everyone is able to apply for a similar type of project should they be interested.
Senator Clement: You can’t force them to be interested.
Ms. Brocca: Correct.
Senator Clement: Other than with the “use it or lose it.” Does that factor in?
Mr. Arbour: The “use it or lose it” provisions that I referred to apply to spectrum licences. These are the radio waves that are an important public resource that ISED manages. We’ve been making more and more frequencies available for wireless services. Each time we do that, we essentially have been increasing or adding another level of build-out requirement that is more stringent than previously. There are still areas that are going to be challenging.
I would say, first of all, that we will get to everybody and that the 100% is not just a target. We have the resources to back it up. It will just take a while to negotiate and develop the project and get shovels in the ground and get it built out. You may ask why some provinces and not others. It is largely dependent on whether or not they had a program to come and partner with us. Even if a province doesn’t have a fund to come and partner with us, our target is still 100%. We will still get to everybody, to be clear.
I would add to your point about years away is years away, so what do these people have access to now? It is not zero. It is not ideal in some cases, but it is usually some type of high-speed internet below our target speeds. That can be manageable. You can still do a Zoom call or something like that. It can sometimes be challenging because there is a lower data cap, so you need to ration your usage, which is not great. Sometimes you might tell the kids that they won’t have any entertainment online because it needs to be for school and for these critical things. We want to move away from rationing. We want to make sure people can do all they want do online. But there are some options, mainly through wireless connections, either some type of fixed wireless or a satellite option like Starlink that’s unfunded by the government, but it is still available and marketed in rural and remote areas.
Senator Clement: Do you work with Health Canada? Do you partner on projects like what we are talking about?
Ms. Brocca: Currently, we do not. We partner with Indigenous Services Canada, or ISC, quite a bit for Indigenous communities. They co-fund a lot of our projects. But Health Canada, no, they have not been one of the departments that has stepped forward with matching funds.
Senator Clement: One last thing: Have you factored artificial intelligence into these projects? Is it a topic of conversation for future development?
Mr. Arbour: When we first developed the strategy in 2019, the notion that ChatGPT would be a thing that would be available in three or four years and what have you — we didn’t know that at the time.
Senator Clement: Right.
Mr. Arbour: But we did develop the target with the notion that there is always something new. There are always more applications that are more data intensive, that are always doing more, that require more and more and more, so it was conceived in that sense. The 50/10 target was set, first of all, with a good amount of run room and a good amount of margin of error for future things. Your average video connection, as I was mentioning, is 5 megabits per second, so running a query with ChatGPT is no problem there. But then to the point about the infrastructure that we’re building, it is in many cases capable of 1,000 megabits per second, so there is lots of scalability for whatever, including artificial intelligence.
[Translation]
The Chair: I have a follow-up question regarding your pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy. Looking at this strategy, we can see that you work with a large number of partners, including the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, CIFAR and Mila. We’re in the context of official languages. You mentioned connectivity and accessibility in rural areas. How does your department, through this cooperation with the provinces, private businesses and partners, take official language needs into consideration? In other words, when your department works with a research organization, such as Mila or the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, are research data and information needs in both official languages taken into account?
Mr. Arbour: Thank you for the question. Generally speaking, and in the context of our work, the availability of services in both official languages is very important for the implementation of our programs. In terms of the artificial intelligence strategy specifically, that is another section of the department. We can follow up on this strategy, but when it comes to the connectivity strategy and the high-speed internet file, we have a large number of providers across the country. It’s therefore important to work with each partner in the official language of their choice.
As for promoting programs to Canadians in general, I’m not sure if my colleague would like to add anything. No? Great.
The Chair: Do you have more information on the questions I asked you about the pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy? You’ll understand that one of our major concerns is the important role that AI will play — and already plays — in the government’s relations with the various communities through its various departments. If you or your colleagues have any information on how official languages issues are being taken into account in the implementation of the pan-Canadian strategy, we’d be very grateful to receive it, if you can share it with us.
Mr. Arbour: We can follow up with our colleagues responsible for this strategy, but that’s another area of the department.
The Chair: You’ll be giving them a little more work on that front. Thank you for your response.
Senator Aucoin: I came in late because I had another meeting, but I read the briefing notes. I was going to ask about artificial intelligence. However, in your facilities, or since you started, do you have any data on the satisfaction of minority language communities? Have you had any feedback from these people on the services put in place or provided by suppliers? Second, could artificial intelligence help improve services to these communities?
Mr. Arbour: Thank you for the question. With respect to satisfaction with telehealth services more specifically, Health Canada is normally responsible for the delivery of health care services. I’ve personally read some studies on the effectiveness of this service in general rather than in the context of a specific service. There’s a certain level of satisfaction mentioned in this study.
As for more systematic research on this service or on satisfaction issues, it’s not necessarily a matter of technology, but rather of training doctors or nurses. Is it easy to find the specific link to access services? Is any specific equipment required, and what is the availability of that equipment? It’s really about the delivery of health services with the health authorities. I have some data, but I’m not an expert. I’m sorry, but it’s a health delivery issue rather than a technology issue.
As far as artificial intelligence is concerned, we’ve seen some popularity with Gemini and ChatGPT. In terms of effectiveness or satisfaction with that type of service, I guess it depends on the quality of the answers provided to the users. Right now, there are issues with hallucinations, because the model is still being developed, and there are some questions about the accuracy of the answers and access to the information being sought. There are a number of possibilities with these technologies, but it depends on the organization of health services and related information.
Senator Aucoin: I’ll ask another question. Ms. Brocca, I understand that you had specific projects with several Indigenous communities. Are there any projects with official language minority communities? Have such projects been considered? Are there any pilot projects? Is it a general connection service for all Canadians, or has something specific been done for these communities?
Ms. Brocca: Thank you for your question. The fund was open to all Canadians. Official language minority communities were also invited to apply. Do we have any specific projects with them? I don’t think so, because most of our projects are with Internet service providers, municipalities, Indigenous communities or non-profit organizations. As I said earlier in the meeting, we don’t have specific data on households in these communities, because our fund exists to connect every household in the country. The only reason we have information on Indigenous people is because they are entitled to a slightly higher percentage for their project than others. That was a criterion in our program, and we needed to know which households were Indigenous, but that’s not the case for all other communities. So it wasn’t necessary to have that data.
Mr. Arbour: If I may add something, there’s a certain economy of scale with telecom projects. It’s more effective for regional projects. It isn’t necessary or effective to have a project just for one community or another.
We have a few projects in southern Ontario; we have a number of projects in Ontario, and we’re going to achieve 100% connectivity in the province as a whole. The same was true for Quebec in 2021.
The good news for everyone is that regional projects tend to be more effective and some communities have more challenges. For Indigenous communities, for example, there are distinct criteria because there are certain economic and geographic issues in those communities. In the case of official language minority communities, the situation is more favourable than in the country as a whole in terms of infrastructure; and with regional projects, we’ll be able to reach the 100% rate.
The Chair: Thank you. It’s quite clear that your goal is connectivity and accessibility to a connection, that the delivery of health care services is a provincial and territorial jurisdiction and that the language issue associated with the delivery of health services is, in that sense, a provincial and territorial responsibility.
When it comes to connectivity, there’s accessibility to connectivity, which means having the training to use and master the technology, and in some areas there’s also the language issue associated with using the technology. In other words, if the technology exists, but it’s not in my language and I don’t speak the other official language, I obviously have an accessibility challenge. You’re not meeting your goal of accessibility since I can’t use the platform you’re offering me.
I understand that it’s not specifically your sector, but are your department and the federal government thinking about this issue? I fully understand the specific needs of Indigenous communities; I’m not trying to make a comparison that wouldn’t hold water. However, in the context of official language minorities, there are specific linguistic challenges that prevent certain Canadian citizens from having access to your platforms.
What are your thoughts on that? When I think, for example, of the digital literacy exchange program, has your department or the government come up with, for instance, a broader strategy than a program, a real national strategy to increase digital literacy, since this falls indirectly under your department?
My question is lengthy, and I don’t know if you can answer it, but I invite you to comment on that thought process.
Ms. Brocca: I can start with this program and a possible strategy. I can’t say whether they’re thinking about a specific strategy. Among the more general digital skills, I think technology adoption is an important aspect. Questions are being asked, and all households will be able to be connected, but will people adopt this technology? Will they use it for several different issues?
In terms of skills in general, there are other programs offered by Employment and Social Development Canada and Service Canada. One of those strategies relates to youth employment and skills. There are a number of different programs with funds to help young people acquire various skills. Some of these programs are aimed at young people, to pass on skills or training to someone else. One of the routes is digital. People in government are thinking about the next step after access to connectivity, but I can’t speak specifically about official languages.
The Chair: Okay. Would you like to add anything, Mr. Arbour?
Mr. Arbour: No, thank you.
The Chair: If there are no further questions, I’d like to thank you, Ms. Brocca and Mr. Arbour, for agreeing to meet with us. We understand, of course, that our specific area of work is broader. Thank you for the information you’ve shared about platforms and accessibility to connectivity. This information will be useful for our study. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Honourable senators, we’ll take a short break and then come back in camera. Thank you for your time.
(The committee continued in camera.)