Our goal is to link up to 10,000 voluntary organizations to the Internet by the end of fiscal year 2000. This slide shows you just how fast the infrastructure is becoming. Nearly one million times faster than five years ago. This is approximately 16 times faster than the American equivalent, the Abilene network project, which is designed to transport data at 2.4 gigabits per second. The second part of our plan is Smart Communities .
Smart communities provide for connectivity at the community level.
It uses the Information Highway to link people and organizations together, to share ideas and to address local needs. We created a Blue Ribbon Panel of experts who advised on how Canada can develop world-class Smart Communities where technology is used in innovative ways. Last month, we announced funding to establish, by the Year 2000, one world-class Smart Community project in each province, the North and an Aboriginal community. The lessons learned will advance the use of information technology at the community level across Canada. The third element of our agenda is Electronic Commerce .