So this is the bureaucratic hole I am in right now: no reliable internet access at home and no hope to EVER get it. I have been communicating with SaskTel extensively and that is their final verdict: no future plans to develop in my area.

Because I am in such a deep rural area, the only option is cellular internet. That service is absolutely awesome and reasonably priced where it exists. If I could get that service, I would be very happy. Right now, I pay for it, but because there is no service in my community (zero bars), I can only get a tenuous signal using a cell signal amplifier/booster. I frequently have to drive 3KM up a hill to a neighbour’s lentil field just to send an email with a small text attachment.

SaskTel holds the monopoly for telecom development in this province. In 2013, they put up a tower in my area, that in theory, would have connected my community to the 21st century. Only they did not corroborate topographic and population data and so that tower’s signals pass right over my community and essentially serve no one.

SaskTel refuses to investigate this mistake and tell me that they don’t plan to do any development in my area in at least the next 10 years.

Today, I got a flier from Industry Canada (where I used to work, coincidentally) telling me, hey, high speed internet is coming your way! I visited their site, Connecting Canadians and saw that this is FALSE. My community is not on the books to get any infrastructure changes. And according to my ISP (ie. SaskTel), we’re on the coverage map, so why should they have to do anything else? Yes, we are on the coverage map, but this is a mistake. Because we are in a valley, the signal from the tower that was meant to serve us actually passes right over us!

This ‘Connecting Canadians’ initiative is going to supposedly bring high speed internet to 98% of Canadians. SaskTel’s development in the last several years has brought connectivity to about 98% of Saskatchewan. I find it hard to swallow that my community of 500 people, never mind all the tourists who come to visit our petroglyphs, museums, and campgrounds, are part of that 2%.

I’ve been to what I thought was the end of the world, like northern Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Communities there are extremely well connected. They get a lot of attention and money. But no one seems to know about this little strip of land between the TransCanada and the US border, between Alberta and Lake Superior, that is still living in the dark ages. And when they find out about it, they don’t care.

I have no other option for internet except for dial up or satellite. That SaskTel considers these to be a reasonable alternative to high speed broadband internet is hilarious.

I need internet for my business and to stay in touch with the outside world (we don’t have cable TV or radio out here either!). In 2011, the United Nations declared internet access to be as basic a human right as access to fresh water. I live in a non-isolated community in a developed country and I will never have internet access in a place I love and was hoping to make a life.

According to federal law, my fate entirely rests in the hands of one company with an extraordinary amount of power: “Canadians currently without 5 Mbps service are encouraged to contact local Internet service providers to discuss the possibility of extending high-speed Internet access to their area. The final decision to offer high-speed Internet in a given area rests with individual ISPs” (emphasis mine).

This is the second time in my life that I have found myself in this position. The first was when I lived a mere 50KM from Ottawa in the heart of cottage country where politicians and celebrities have homes. If I still lived there, I would still be waiting for cellular and broadband service. So with that knowledge, I know that my situation here in Saskatchewans is truly hopeless.

I would be grateful if you share this story to show the kind of malarkey we get from the Canadian government. The ‘Connecting Canadians’ initiative is a joke . If they really wanted to connect us, they wouldn’t give telecom monopolies all the power.