The Eastern Ontario Wardens' Caucus collaborated with the Eastern Ontario Broadband Coalition, and two years ago it was thought that to address the gap would cost in the $50 million to $60 million range. That number, I think, has since come down as companies continue trying to expand.
The provincial program last year was a $10 million program. In some communities they had a phased approach, but some of the responses to the RFP were actually proposing to invest more money than the one-third that went with the municipal–provincial program.
It has been a very successful first step, but I think if there were any one thing—not to diminish the need for maintaining and indeed enhancing our transportation links in eastern Ontario and the issues of cost of fuel—broadband is the key.
Our document shows, and Mayor Staples has alluded to this, that in eastern Ontario alone we have five deep-water ports. The world is out there. We have three significant crossings to the United States, our largest trading partner in the world.