Tech Reset Canada Newsletter #6
Toronto’s Expanded Free Public Wi-Fi Strategy Edition - Survey Call to Action
Hi all,
This is pretty much a one-issue edition of our newsletter. That issue is a request to you, our readers, to help support expanded public wi-fi access in the City of Toronto. The City is doing a survey on the topic. It closes this Friday June 21st. If you’d like to support public investment in public internet access, such as the access we currently provide through the Toronto Public Library system, this is a great opportunity to take five minutes to do so. It’s genuinely a quick survey.
If you’re not in Toronto, please skip down to related readings and events, as there is some broader information available about public internet access, and a great conference called Our Networks happening in Vancouver on July 27th - an event that is about exploring different futures for our networks :)
Toronto’s Expanded Free Public Wi-Fi Strategy
We’ll cut to the chase: this survey to support the expansion of Toronto’s public wi-fi closes this Friday June 21st. Here is the link to the webpage where you can do the survey. It’s the big blue button on the right (see screenshot below).
source: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/accountability-operations-customer-service/long-term-vision-plans-and-strategies/connected-community/torontos-expanded-free-public-wi-fi-strategy/
Background
Last year, in October 2023, City Council directed City Staff to: “consult with the technology community, anti-poverty groups, those with lived experience in the digital divide, including Indigenous, Black, and racialized groups, the Council Advisory Bodies, and potential end users in developing an expanded Toronto public Wi-Fi strategy, with a focus to bridge the digital divide and to promote economic development through connectivity modernization.”
This survey is part of that consultation. This happened under the header of a progam that is called ConnectTO - you can read more about that item, and the program more broadly, here - EX8.8 - ConnectTO Program Update: City Assets for Efficiency and Connectivity
Rationale to Fill Out the Survey
It’s a very short survey. You can respond as an individual and/or as an organization that works on or supports digital equity. So if you work at a non-profit, agency, or business that supports digital equity, be sure to see if you can fill it out again on that organization’s behalf.
Staff did not have an easy time with this topic, generally speaking, when it went to City Council last time. So if you know about/support the value that free wi-fi offers to so many in our communities through the public library system, this is a good way to show up and ask for more investment in that direction for the City more broadly.
There’s also an option to fill in this survey on behalf of any community group and an offer to potentially collaborate with the City on future implementation of this program. If any organization you are part of wants to support digital inclusion in your neighbourood this is a good survey to do.
Showing up here via a simple survey is one way to practice democracy and support for public investment as an individual *and* as a civic organization both between elections *and* across different political administrations. It matters. And sometimes it works : )
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Related Reading
“Toronto’s Digital Divide” - a new report by Angus Lockhart and Sam Andrey at the dias at Toronto Metropolitan University. (May 2024)
“The post-pandemic future: Affordable Internet will become a universal human right” - by Alejandra Ruiz Vargas of ACORN Canada in Toronto Life. (August 2020)
“Reshuffling the ConnectTO Deck” - a recap of the last time ConnecTO was at Council - by Bianca Wylie. (May 2022)
“City Council and the Ground Game” - “We shouldn’t expect Mayor Olivia Chow to deliver big progressive changes. It’s going to take networks of grassroots groups pushing together to stop city council from doing the bidding of Toronto’s corporate class.” - by Desmond Cole in The Grind
“We Need To Rewild The Internet” - "The internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture. But we can revitalize it using lessons learned by ecologists." - by Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon in Noema
Related Events
Our Networks 2024 - Does Not Cloud Compute. July 27, 2024 - 312 Main, Vancouver BC. this is an A++++++ event :) more info here:
https://ournetworks.ca/
source: our networks website: https://ournetworks.ca/
Recent Events We Attended
It was nice to be invited to take part in ACORN Canada’s national conference this past weekend to celebrate twenty years of their work, as well as our shared efforts on both Sidewalk Toronto and ConnectTO. If you’d like to join a local chapter to get involved in supporting the fight for increased rights and protections for tenants, take a look at their site:
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Your team,
Bianca Wylie, Saadia Muzaffar, Jen Evans, and April Dunford
Tech Reset Canada
Learn more at TechResetCanada.org
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Together@TechResetCanada.org
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