January 19, 2016

For Immediate Release

Liberals Announce Previous Administration’s Broadband

Initiative After Voting Against the Budget

Steve Kent, Business, Tourism, Culture and Rural Development Critic for the Official Opposition, said he is pleased to see the Liberals re-announce the previous administration’s Rural Broadband Initiative, which was launched in 2011 to motivate and assist telecommunications carriers to expand broadband access into unserved and underserved rural and remote areas of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The previous PC administration announced initiatives under the third phase of the initiative in July 2015 and other initiatives in the years prior to that. Ironically, the Opposition Liberals voted against the 2015 budget and previous budgets that helped to finance the initiative they are announcing.

“In fact, while in government, our Party was a strong believer in improving broadband access to drive rural development, and that’s why we invested $34 million during our tenure and leveraged another $121 million to expand broadband to more than 500 communities. This gave 98 per cent of Newfoundland and Labrador’s households broadband access and expanded opportunities for rural entrepreneurs and small businesses to use the latest in technology to drive success,” said Kent.

“Are these the ‘wasted and mismanaged’ monies the current Finance Minister was talking about when she complained about our infrastructure investments? Ms. Bennett and her colleagues complained that we did not diversify our economy, and they even voted against our initiatives, but now they are now re-announcing our plan and agreeing with us that it ‘allows for economic development across the province’,” said Kent.

“On Friday, it was full-day Kindergarten. On Monday, it was tourism marketing. On Tuesday, it’s rural broadband. When will the Ball Liberals tell us if they have any plans of their own?”

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Key Links:

Full-day Kindergarten

PC announcement, March 27, 2014: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2014/edu/0327n12.htm

PC announcement, April 30, 2015: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2015/aes/0430n06.aspx

Liberal announcement, January 15, 2016: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2016/edu/0115n02.aspx

Tourism Marketing

PC announcement, April 30, 2015: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2015/btcrd/0430n07.aspx

PC news release, June 10, 2015: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2015/btcrd/0610n06.aspx

Liberal announcement, January 18, 2016: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2016/btcrd/0118n01.aspx

Broadband

PC announcement, January 29, 2015: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2015/btcrd/0129n07.aspx

PC announcement, July 27, 2015: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2015/btcrd/0727n07.aspx

Liberal announcement, January 19, 2016: www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2016/btcrd/0119n01.aspx

Media Contact:

Heather MacLean

Director of Communications

Office of the Official Opposition

(709) 729 6105

heathermaclean@gov.nl.ca