Provincial government to help SmartLabrador through transitional period

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will work with SmartLabrador to ensure that critical services such as communications with health boards and courts that SmartLabrador now provides to Labrador residents are not interrupted.

"SmartLabrador has performed a very important service in bringing broadband Internet services to Labrador," said Premier Danny Williams. "We will work with SmartLabrador on a transition plan to ensure that government services and community access in Labrador continue uninterrupted or are not significantly affected."

SmartLabrador, which provides Internet and video conferencing services to remote communities in Labrador, announced June 16 that a lack of funding would cause an imminent shutdown of its network and the termination of all of its electronic services. They had requested on-going operational funding from the provincial government.

"We, as a government, recognized that services and citizens would be adversely affected if we did not step in and provide some interim funding. Right now we are in a transition period during which we need to continue services to communities who rely on SmartLabrador, until the expansion of the broadband infrastructure is more complete. We are prepared to work with SmartLabrador to ensure an orderly transition so that government services and community access in Labrador continue," added the Premier.

SmartLabrador was a pilot project intended to establish broadband infrastructure and build community capacity using Internet technology. SmartLabrador succeeded in its project objective of kick-starting connectivity in Labrador, and the province has provided partial funding to the project since 1999 through cost-shared arrangements with the Government of Canada. But SmartLabrador�s recent request for additional funding is to subsidize ongoing operations without a clear indication of how the network would be funded in the future.

"Over the past several years, SmartLabrador has received a substantial amount of government funding to make this project work with the goal of making the organization self sufficient. However, the provincial government cannot be expected to indefinitely fund all the types of services that SmartLabrador had been providing," said Minister Dunderdale, Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, whose department will work with SmartLabrador on the transition plan. "In most parts of the province which have broadband technology, these services are provided by the private sector on a user-pay basis."

Media contacts:

Elizabeth Matthews, Office of the Premier, (709) 729-3960
Lynn Evans, Communications, (709) 729-4570

2004 07 02                                        4:00 p.m.