Expanding high-speed Internet access in Northern Ontario

Sudbury – Fairness for every generation means making sure everyone in Canada has access to reliable and affordable high-speed Internet, no matter where they live. That is why the governments of Canada and Ontario are bringing high-speed Internet access to underserved communities—including Indigenous communities—in Ontario.

Gudie Hutchings, Minister of Rural Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and Amarjot Sandhu, Parliamentary Assistant to Ontario’s Minister of Infrastructure, on behalf of Kinga Surma, Ontario’s Minister of Infrastructure, announced over $97 million in combined federal and provincial funding for ROCK Networks, a PomeGran group company. The project will bring high-speed Internet access to more than 60 communities along the north shore of Lake Huron between Sudbury, Huron Shores and Sault Ste. Marie, and on Manitoulin Island. It will serve 18,600 households, including over 2,500 Indigenous households. Minister Hutchings and Parliamentary Assistant Sandhu were joined by Viviane Lapointe, Member of Parliament for Sudbury; Terry Sheehan, Member of Parliament for Sault Ste. Marie and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and Seniors; and Marc G. Serré, Member of Parliament for Nickel Belt, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Official Languages.

The project being announced today is part of an existing partnership between Ontario and Canada. On July 29, 2021, the governments announced a Canada–Ontario broadband partnership to support large‑scale, fibre-based projects that will provide high-speed Internet access to nearly 280,000 households across the province. This historic agreement was made possible by a joint federal‑provincial investment totalling more than $1.2 billion.

Everyone in Canada will have access to high-speed Internet by 2030, and 98% of Canadians will be connected by 2026. Canada is on track to meet its 2026 connectivity targets. These projects will contribute to reaching that goal, and the government will continue to invest in infrastructure that creates new opportunities in communities to make sure they can benefit from all of Canada’s potential. The announcement also brings the Government of Ontario closer to achieving its goal of bringing reliable high-speed Internet access to every community across the province by the end of 2025.