Greater Rural Broadband Access Can Mean Greater Access to Justice
December 23, 2016
BY British Columbia Law Institute
Greater access to justice may be an indirect consequence of the CRTC decision on 21 December 2016 requiring internet providers to dedicate resources to expanding and enhancing high-speed internet service in rural and remote areas of Canada. As BCLI’s study paper Technology-Assisted and Remote Evidence Presentation: A Practice Resource points out, legal barriers to conducting multiparty court and tribunal proceedings by streaming audio and video from multiple endpoints have largely been removed. Full realization of the potentialities that telecommunications technology holds for increasing access to justice nevertheless requires the expansion of reliable high-speed internet service to areas of the country that are still underserved.
