Telus intends to erect a 73 metre tall cell phone tower on Quadra Island
Cortes Currents
English - May 04, 2021 15:07 - 8 minutes - 19.6 MBNews cortes island discovery islands quadra food security energy indigenous nations Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Telus intends to erect a a 73-meter tall cel phone tower on land owned by the Wei Wai Kai Nation at Drew Harbour, on Quadra Island.
They announced this in the Bird’s Eye on April 21 and April 28, stating “any person may comment by close of business on June 4th.” Interested parties are to email Brian Gregg of SitePath Consulting at [email protected]
Gregg emailed the Strathcona Regional District that “As you know, the land use authority in this instance is the First Nation however we wanted to send your team a copy of the upcoming newspaper notice as a courtesy to keep the SRD aware of TELUS’ plans in the area. We have full support of the We Wai Kai Nation Chief and Council and wanted to ensure that your team is in receipt of this notification as a courtesy.”
In response, the SRD Board is writing a protest to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) to say they are opposed to this project until the community has been properly consulted.
According to Regional Director Jim Abram, the SRD lost out on Connected Coast funding because Telus gave the government incorrect information. The SRD had to borrow the money.
Regional Director Jim Abram said Telus has been trying to impede Quadra Island’s involvement in the Connected Coast project.
He said the more developed southern part of Quadra Island was not able to obtain funding through the Connected Coast because Telus gave the government misleading information about their internet connection speed.
” … That we were covered to a degree of 50 megabytes down, 10 megabytes up. That is untrue and we (subsequently) proved it with our screenshots. The highest one was 38. most of them were down around the 10s,” said Abram.
“They cut out a huge amount of our funding for the Connected Coast, which we are all involved in. We just passed a motion to borrow a bunch of money and that is because of what Telus has done. in this situation”
“Now they are trying to further impede our movement on the Connected Coast by putting up cell towers that will provide cell service … Also telling people that they can get high speed internet from those cell towers, which I believe they can – at a great deal of cost. That they are not telling us.”