What to do when your closest ally engages in economic warfare, not just against you but everyone? Build more fibre broadband.

Like many people this is the thought that has preoccupied me over the last few weeks. Moreover, how should a government respond in the best interests of its citizens when its largest trade partner has imposed punitive and destructive tariffs on a wide swath of goods and services that fuel its integrated economy?

As taxpayers, we should hope that our government prioritizes investments and supports that create employment and involve to the greatest extent possible shovel ready activities. Broadly speaking, the types of investments that would qualify are those made in expanding critical and productive infrastructure where the investment is sunk and will generate economic dividends and wide ranging benefits including ongoing employment into the future. Preferably, the types of projects we would focus on are projects that involve things we are good at and not ones where we are inept. In other words, not the kinds of things described by Howard Lutnick, the current Secretary of Commerce in the United States, when he opined that he wanted to repatriate the jobs involving the placement of millions of screws currently done by workers in Asia. I can confidently predict that Mr. Lutnick will never repatriate those jobs, and to the extent he does have any success, what he will repatriate are artificial intelligence and robotic applications that he also will likely import. I am highly doubtful that is what the good people of Dearborn, Michigan had in mind.

So what types of projects should the government invest in? One area I would like to propose for immediate and further investment is further broadband expansion. Investments in this regard are particularly appealing in the environment in which we find ourselves. At least two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, have either cancelled or signalled they will imminently cancel rural and remote service contracts they have with Elon Musk's Starlink. This creates a unique opportunity because the deals that both provinces entered into with Starlink were in my view improvident insofar as they involved pre-purchasing capacity guarantees that are unnecessary or, over the long term insufficient. While Starlink's service is likely an adequate stopgap technology for some, it is not a future proof long term solution and most certainly is not a home grown one. If policy makers are insistent for reasons of cost or expediency to support this technology as even a medium term solution then Telesat's Lightspeed would seem a better option. While Lightspeed is not planned to be a direct to consumer product, the federal, Ontario, and Quebec governments who are all investors in the project could redefine a solution that would serve the same purpose as Starlink and would maintain a Canadian connection. Canadian investment supporting Mr. Musk or any of his companies I don't believe would be widely supported by Canadians, not even amongst those who would be the immediate beneficiaries of it.

Last year, I proposed a review of the Canadian ownership and control regulations for telecommunications and broadcasting companies. I have revisited the view that a more liberal approach to those regulations could spur further investment and technology transfer than the currently more restrictive regime. I now would recommend that any future government tread carefully in revisiting the restrictions. No one, a year ago could have reasonably foreseen the chaos and upheaval that would be wrought by the bad actor activities of the United States. I do not believe for the foreseeable future that we can allow foreign control of these strategic industries and networks.

Previous governments have pledged to have unlimited 50/100 Mbps available to 100% of Canadians by 2031. I would recommend that an incoming government immediately make available contributory funding consistent with the conditions imposed by previous funding rounds that would make unlimited 100/100 Mbps broadband available to 100% of Canadians by 2031 but with a strong preference for FTTH deployments. If the federal, provincial, municipal and First Nation governments are serious about mitigating the damaging effects of the punitive policies of the United States, this would provide shovel ready projects from which to choose and provide productive broadband capacity to those 20% to 30% of Canadians who according to the government do not currently have it.

Both parties are promising investments in infrastructure and to reduce the stifling regulatory hurdles that accompany these types of investments. To date, the focus has been on resource projects which are important of course but which offer over time diminishing returns. What I propose is investing in facilities that promote productivity, innovation and competitiveness. This type of investment would in part answer the challenge made by Deputy Governor Rogers last March when she challenged policy makers to break the glass.