Connecting Rural Canadians : A Review of Policy, Measurement and Outcomes

The rate of Internet diffusion in Canada has been quite rapid compared to other innovations such as electricity and telephony. Internet diffusion however, has not been homogenous and depends on many factors. Previous research has identified unevenness both geographically and among different segments of the population. A logistic regression model of 2005 Canadian Internet Use Survey (CIUS) data found that an individual residing in a rural or small town location had lower odds of Internet use, controlling for other factors such as age, income and education. And these lower odds of use in smaller communities were the same irrespective of proximity to larger urban centres, implying a hierarchical diffusion pattern. This same regression model was then applied to the 2007 CIUS data in order to determine how the factors associated with Internet use had changed. While the difference in odds of Internet use between urban and rural residents remained statistically significant, it had become smaller. This paper examines the changing importance of factors associated with accessing the Internet since 2005, with an emphasis on geographic location and broadband penetration. The first section will review public policy initiatives of the Canadian government and measurement efforts by Statistics Canada. The next section examines previous research illustrating urban and rural differences in online access and uses. Bolstering rural Internet use by providing on-ramps to the so called information highway was the policy objective of the federal Community Access Program. As the emphasis has shifted to increasing broadband connectivity, closing the rural digital divide remained a policy objective of the federal Connecting Rural Canadians program. The final section presents results from the 2009 CIUS to illustrate how the survey can inform federal broadband policy and then describes how the CIUS was redesigned to provide better measures of household Internet connectivity