ACORN's two year old Internet for All campaign got a shot in the arm recently.  Toronto city council's Economic Development Committee voted unanimously to begin development on providing free WIFI to all Toronto Community Housing buildings.  The motion, called Making Toronto a Tech-Friendly City and Bridging the Digital Divide, paves the way for 58,000 units of housing to have access to the internet for free; but the campaign still has to pass a final hurdle at City Council to become a reality.  

Toronto Community Housing is home to over 164,000 residents and is the largest landlord in Canada, many of whom - like Kelly Lalande - have been leading our campaign for the last two years. Rest assured that Kelly and the rest of Toronto ACORN will be active to make sure that council does indeed make free WIFI a reality for TCH residents!

Not only would this be a massive victory, it also would be acknowledgement by the City of Toronto that the Digital Divide does exist - exorbitant pricing by the main telecom companies limits access to essential information in low-income communities. This potential game changer at the City will only give ACORN more authority to move forward with our campaign across Canada.

And it most certainly will also add weight to our demands to the CRTC that they must declare high-speed internet access a Basic Service Objective in the upcoming review of basic services.

ACORN's Internet for All campaign aims to get $10 internet for every Canadian earning less than the Low Income measure.

PRESS:

Metro News: Toronto a step closer to free public Wi-Fi