The hope for the provincial government to help fund improvements to cell phone and internet data service may be resting on a handshake by the premier.
In his report to Hastings County council on Thursday, CEO Jim Pine said Eastern Ontario Regional Network has been working on the high speed network project for the last four years, and this is the year some decisions must be made.
In an interview following the meeting, Pine tells Quinte News he raised the issue of provincial government’s $71 million contribution with Ontario Premier Doug Ford at the recent Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference in Toronto, seeking provincial funding.
And they shook hands on it.
Pine emphasized $218 million public private project is essential for eastern Ontario to improve access to broadband for the public and business.
EORN is seeking $71 million from the federal government as well.
The eastern Ontario municipalities have pledged $10 million and $63 million will come from the private sector.
Pine is hoping for a financial decision by the province and the federal governments by this summer.
He said, “We have to negotiate contracts with the federal and provincial governments for their share of the money and last time (a previous EORN project) that took 51 weeks from the time in 2009 when they told us we could have the $55 million from Ontario and $55 million from the federal government. Now we’re going to push that much quicker I believe but it takes time to negotiate the legal agreements in order to go out to the market to issue our requests for proposals.
Our message was, if you delay any longer you’re going to be pushing out the construction maybe to a point where it’s really difficult to get the industry to participate, so it’s critical not to delay anymore.”
