Ottawa residents: Tell City Council to support a motion for affordable Internet ASAP

If you’re a resident of Ottawa, tell your Councillor you want faster, more affordable Internet before the February 24 deadline!

If you’ve been following along, the debate about affordable, fibre internet is sweeping the country. Earlier this month, Toronto jumped in, supporting more choice for its residents. Next up: Ottawa.

On February 24, Ottawa City Council will debate a motion to support greater choice and affordability in Internet service providers (ISPs) in their city.

If you’re a resident of Ottawa, and care about the future of Canada’s Internet, you need to let your Councillor know you support this motion ASAP. We’ve posted details for reaching your councillor below.

Click here to find your councillor and their contact details.

The motion, tabled by Councillor Jeff Leiper and seconded by Councillor Diane Deans, asks Ottawa City Council to support a significant CRTC ruling forcing major telecom providers to provide smaller, independent Internet providers access to their state-of-the-art fibre Internet networks.

If you’ve followed OpenMedia at all in the past 6 months, you’ll know all about this Internet emergency. We’ve fought very hard for our community and Canadian Internet users on this.

We’ve published op-eds, backgrounders, submitted detailed comments to Cabinet, fought Bell at the CRTC (twice! see the story of the original hearing here), and written letters to Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, amongst others.

As you may recall, Bell is invoking an obscure, rarely-used parliamentary process to play politics with your Internet bill. If successful, this could mean the death of affordable Internet access for Canadian households and businesses. In the process, the telecom giant has managed to get the support of their suppliers, and a gaggle of mayors, including Ottawa’s own Jim Watson.

Mayor Watson is one of the mayors who wrote to federal Cabinet in a personal capacity to support Bell’s appeal. You can find his letter here. However, as the Ottawa Citizen reports, “Watson acknowledged it’s not an issue he spent a lot of time on and he’s willing to have the debate at council.”

City motions supporting greater Internet choice and affordability, such as the one just passed by Toronto City Council, are an excellent way to let residents, businesses, and policymakers know where their constituents stand.

The CRTC ruling, if upheld, will ensure smaller, independent, providers as a means of increasing choice and affordability for high-speed Internet in Canada – a move experts agree will increase ISP choice to help bring prices down, especially for blazing-fast services like fibre

If you’re a resident of Ottawa, know this: putting in next-generation, lightning-fast fibre networks means tearing up streets. And if you’ve ever had your streets and sidewalks ripped up by a company like Bell, then this impacts you, and City Hall needs to speak out on your behalf.

As we see it, if telecom providers are going to have access to municipal rights of way, sidewalks, generally mess-up our communities to build out crucial network infrastructure, then it should be for the maximum benefit of all residents. This means upholding CRTC rules to ensure residents have access to the widest range of Internet providers possible – at affordable prices.

So, don’t delay...

Message Your City Councillor ASAP!

Step 1: Determine Your Ward and Councillor

Use the City of Ottawa’s ward lookup service here to determine who you should send your messages to. If you already know your Councillor, move on to the steps below.

Step 2: Send a Message to Your Councillor

Below are the email addresses for each Ottawa City Councillor. We have added, where possible, direct links to their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

If you’re writing an email, or calling, here’s what you need to say (feel free to copy & paste):

Hi there. My name is __________ and I’m a constituent in your ward. As a pro-Internet supporter, I am asking you to lend your support to Councillor Leiper's motion In Support of Competitive and Affordable Internet, which will be tabled on Wednesday, February 24.
Canadians presently pay some of the highest prices in the industrialized world for what are widely recognized as “middle of the road” Internet services. I urge you to support Councillor Leiper’s motion so we can change this. Digital innovation is central to the future of our economy and the City of Ottawa has a key role to play in this. Thanks for your time.

Ward 1 Orléans

Bob Monette

(613) 580-2471

Ottawa residents: Tell City Council to support a motion for affordable Internet ASAP

Message Your City Councillor ASAP!

Step 1: Determine Your Ward and Councillor

Step 2: Send a Message to Your Councillor

Ward 1 Orléans

Ward 2 Innes

Ward 3 Barrhaven

Ward 4 Kanata North

Ward 5 West Carleton-March

Ward 6 Stittsville

Ward 7 Bay

Ward 8 College

Ward 9 Knoxdale-Merivale

Ward 10 Gloucester-Southgate

Ward 11 Beacon Hill-Cyrville

Ward 12 Rideau-Vanier

Ward 13 Rideau-Rockcliffe

Ward 14 Somerset

Ward 15 Kitchissippi

Ward 16 River

Ward 17 Capital

Ward 18 Alta Vista

Ward 19 Cumberland

Ward 20 Osgoode

Ward 21 Rideau-Goulbourn

Ward 22 Gloucester-South Nepean

Ward 23 Kanata South

Mayor Jim Watson

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