Welcome to high speed: Lemonville and Locust Hill in Markham and Stouffville set to get hooked up

Markham-Stouffville MP Helena Jaczek announced the federal government was giving Bell $125,000 to help service the area

Yorkregion.com
April 15, 2021
Simon Martin

Bob Curgenven has lost count of the number of times he’s had to help people with their television and internet in Lemonville.

A resident of the small hamlet on McCowan Road for the last 27 years, Curgenven said internet service in the area can only be described as spotty at best. “In the evening it’s difficult to stream shows," he said.

Only a stone’s throw away from good internet, Curgenven has been bugging elected officials for the past 10 years to do something about the situation.

It’s much the same story for John Kasias, who could be the last man in Markham without good internet. The Locust Hill resident found himself in a dead zone of high-speed internet ever he moved to his house, 13 years ago, on Highway 7.

“The day I moved in and called Bell, they told me there was no internet service in the area,” he said.

It never dawned on Kasias that a home a kilometre or so away from Markham Stouffville Hospital wouldn’t have good internet. “I have been fighting for this for almost eight years."

Lemonville and Locust Hill are in odd dead zones -- just rural enough not to be served by Bell and Rogers and not rural enough to be looked at by the traditional rural internet offerings that have cropped up in recent years, Kasias said.

Luckily for Kasias and Curgenven, the days of spotty internet in their neighbourhoods appears to be over. Markham-Stouffville MP Helena Jaczek announced the federal government has given $125,000 of funding to Bell to bring high speed internet to Lemonville and Locust Hill.

As part of the arrangement Bell will spend just over $300,000 to service the 144 households in the two areas with the hopes of work being completed in November of this year.

“I’ve been advocating for more help for residents in rural, near-urban communities like we have in our riding,” Jazcek said. "I’m excited that the first intake has led to two successful projects from Markham-Stouffville. It will make a big difference for those residents.”

Stouffville Mayor Iain Lovatt said the residents of Lemonville have been advocating for better internet quite some time. “It’s the No. 1 issue I have heard about from our rural residents,” Mayor Iain Lovatt said.

Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti acknowledged that the community of Locust Hill had been in need of service improvements for quite some time and thanked the federal government for the support in making that happen.

Rural residents have been looking forward to this for quite some time Stouffville Ward 3 Coun. Hugo Kroon said. And while he is happy for the funding, Kroon said he is now getting calls from other residents wondering when they can expect better service.

“I’m happy for the these residents and want to spread this into more areas of Whitchurch-Stouffville,” Kroon said.

Kasias certainly is looking forward to a life where he is not constantly monitoring data caps. He would often take his children to their grandparents to download the latest updates and programs.

“When they told me this was going to be approved it was amazing. I never thought it was going to happen,” he said. “It connects us digitally to the rest of Markham and enhances our quality of life.”

For Kurgenven it means getting rid of his satellite and bring better television and better internet. The pandemic put a further spotlight on just how necessary it was to have high-speed internet, Kurgenven said. The Lemonville United Church has been streaming its services and there has been some challenges with getting quality connections. “To hear this is actually happening is really, really neat,” he said.

The federal money for the project came from Universal Broadband Fund, which is a $1.75-billion investment designed to help connect all Canadians to high-speed internet.