| The series of special articles
to follow is reprinted with the kind permission of Eastern
Shore author and publisher Marike Finlay-de Monchy and the
Guysborough
Journal. |
 Rural
Inequalities Inhibit Economic Progress and Democratic Process
Dateline: December
2006
3rd in the "Inroads" Series
By: Marike Finlay - de Monchy
The comment making the rounds on election night-that the Conservatives
could not make inroads into urban Nova Scotia because they did
not pave the roads in the city-is also, unfortunately, a sorry
commentary on the state of rural Nova Scotia. For us, pavement
is, apparently, everything. As far as the information highways
of the present or future might be concerned, rural Nova Scotia
is merely dirt tracks.
I ran as a candidate for the Green Party in my home riding of
Guysborough-Sheet Harbour. This beautiful, sparsely populated
riding the size of PEI takes in nearly a sixth of the geography
of the province, but boasts hardly any services. There are no
100-series highways here, nor are there community college campuses.
We see few tourists or businesses that are not resource-based.
Cell phone service is rare and spotty at best and high speed internet
is a dream from another planet.
Politicians in the area like to suggest that repaving our roads
will bring us tourist dollars and lead to various other successes.
But promises and asphalt patches are all we get.
For years the residents of Guysborough - Sheet Harbour have been
calling for equal access to information technologies. We have
been getting asphalt patches on pot-holes instead.
When I attended the all candidates' debate in Sherbrooke, some
listeners told me that they had come in order to repeat a request
for high speed internet and cell phone service across the riding.
Their concerns are serious, and seem to fall on deaf ears in
this provincial, "pro-rural" government. New businesses
and "smart developments" are crippled by a lack of telecommunications
infrastructure on the Eastern Shore. Lack of basic services retards
Guysborough-Sheet Harbour from entering the new economy of the
21st Century and discourages tourism and in-migration.
For example, three years ago a film crew came to West Quoddy
in order to make a film about a poet who resides here, Karin Cope.
This film was subsequently aired a few times on CBC television
in both the French and English services, as well as internationally
on Bravo. The film crew wanted to stay at the Marquis of Dufferin
Motel in Port Dufferin but because cell phone and internet service
were not available there, they were unable to stay in the area.
Imagine the damage to the Marquis of Dufferin and the Bay of Isles!
Likewise, for eight years now, my small writing and editing business
has been hobbled by slow speed dial up internet service which
often does not work at all. I am sometimes obliged to drive to
Halifax in order to deliver work or to send images across a high
speed line. Much of the time, I must mail, via the postal service,
cds containing any large files. And because there is no cell service,
I miss calls when I am away from my land line. Recently, during
a time of very poor connection up and down the dial-up line along
highway #7, I thought I had filed a column for the Herald, only
to learn, many days later, that it had never arrived. I have lost
a great deal of time and money thanks to the poor quality of the
internet service available to me.
Worse still, are the limitations such poor service places on
democratic process. During the final week of the election, my
dial-up service dropped to speeds as low as 4 Kbps! Nothing, not
even disconnecting, is possible at such speeds. Thus, for the
final week of the elections, when my campaign manager and I were
trying to contact potential voters and to stay in touch with the
Green organizing committee, our internet communications were nil.
Of course, we repeatedly called Aliant; someone could come in
five days, we were told, when the election was over.
A travel writer, I have just returned from El Salvador, an underdeveloped,
war and catastrophe-ravaged third world country. In a remote bay
of El Salvador, we were able to access high speed internet via
a wireless internet service-- and everyone had a cell phone! Indeed,
even on the high seas, via a modem that routes messages through
an SSB radio, we have more reliable internet communications than
we do in our home on the outskirts of HRM.
How can Nova Scotia hope to increase its productivity, encourage
the in-migration of smart workers to under-populated areas such
as Guysborough - Sheet Harbour, offer equality of health and safety
services to its citizens, or conduct democratic elections when
its government is concerned with asphalt at the expense of all
other highways made possible by new communications technologies?
The ongoing flagrant inequality of basic communications services
in the rural areas of Canada ought to be considered a Charter
issue today.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
If you do not have hi-speed internet or cell phone service in
your area, please call your local server, Aliant etc., and ask
for it. If your dial-up service is slow or down, please call the
phone company to register that fact, protest and ask for hi-speed
internet or at least well-functioning dial-up service. Call your
councilor, MLA and MP asking them to restore equity of essential
services to all regions of Canada by collaborating with private
telecommunications companies to provide new communications technology
services to sparsely populated regions of the province.
Read Installments - 1,
2
Coming in January - "Retreating
Forward " 
Marike Finlay - de Monchy taught Communications at McGill University
and abroad, practiced psychoanalysis, carried out development
work in Latin America, and managed an organic farm in Quebec.
Marike sailed to the Eastern Shore and loved it
so much that she has since settled in West Quoddy where she runs
a small writing, editing and publishing business.
Marike and Karin Cope are co-authors of "Casting a Legend
- The Story of the Lunenburg Foundry".
"Casting a Legend - The Story of the Lunenburg Foundry"
Buy the Book Now!
Buy Karin Cope's book
"Passionate Collaborations: Learning to Live With Gertrude
Stein"
|
Where
on Earth is
