Rural broadband initiative expensive farce:
money wasted - Communities left behind

The critic for Innovation, Business and Rural Development, St. Barbe Liberal MHA Jim Bennett claims that the Dunderdale Hi Speed Initiative is an expensive farce that is wasting taxpayer dollars while leaving many communities without service. For nearly 2 months Bennett has been trying to get answers from IBRD Minister Keith Hutchings, without success.

He says that ”for what good the Government initiative is to some communities, the Minister may as well have gone to the top of the Confederation Building and physically hurled out millions of dollars of public money.” The Government initiative is paying to connect some communities while bypassing others, without any explanation. The government doesn’t even know which communities are being left out or where they are.

Bennett believes that the Government should be more hands on and not let large, favoured service providers cherry pick the sites that they want while ignoring other adjacent towns. He says that “all taxpayers in the province are paying the price for the Government’s indifference or incompetence and should demand answers.”

Any towns without hi speed can use their dial-up service to contact Bennett, who intends to raise this issue as soon as the House of Assembly opens in March.

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