How Comfortably Does the Internet Sit on Canada’s Tundra? Reflections on Public Access to the Information Highway in the North

Abstract

Much of the recent discourse in Canadian communication studies has focused on the development of the information highway, the Internet, and the ways in which minority constituency groups may gain equitable access to its common routes. One of the assumptions underlying current discussions it that everyone would automatically want to be linked to the information highway in order not to be left behind. Using case study materials from Canada’s North, this paper will examine several ways in which First Peoples have intervened in the broader Canadian debates to examine their own cultural, political, and economic objectives and goals in an effort to construct an infrastructure reflecting their unique information needs. First, it will focus on the ground-breaking teleconference, Connecting the North, which took place in 1994 to discuss Northern priorities and services. Second, I shall look at the more recent pilot projects and plans for the extension of the information highway into the North. Evidence from the Northern planning process supports a more deliberative decision making approach consistent with those like Harold Innis (1951) and Heather Menzies (1996), both of whom argue for a slowing down period in which to contemplate long-term technical priorities and policy strategies, as well as the information highway’s possible implications for (cross)cultural communication patterns in the futur