The mayor of Steinbach says the city will support a lobby effort by 4 municipalities in the southeast for better cell phone service. The RM's of Stuartburn, La Broquerie, Piney and Franklin are mounting a lobby effort after lack of service caused a major risk to residents and firefighters during wildfires two weeks ago.

Mayor Chris Goertzen says that risk also affects people in the city. He explains, "We saw it not only for our neighbours and the people that use our services in our city, but our own firefighters and our own RCMP officers had a real struggle with it."

Mayor Goertzen feels cell phone service should be a basic right for all people. He says everyone uses cell phones and if that service is not available in an emergency, it's not good. He adds, even for the everyday needs of businesses and residents, cell phone service needs to be available to all people.

He urges all residents to actively lobby  provincial and federal politicians to make sure whatever needs to happen gets done to provide reliable cell phone service throughout all of southeastern Manitoba.