Thank you for your question. I am also going to answer it in English.
I'm glad you raised this question, because this is where the regional development agencies come into play.
ACOA is a very important platform for us to make those investments for diversification, particularly in rural and remote regions where there is very little or limited interface with the federal government. ACOA is the face of the federal government in those regions. That is why I very much support this regional development agency. It has a tremendous track record of making key investments to help communities transition when they get into difficult times, particularly in some of the challenges around seasonal workers.
We have different initiatives in ACOA to help businesses, from enterprise development to community development. We focus a lot on business development initiatives. The idea is that we work on small projects and also large projects, because we are focusing on helping these companies grow. We make the investment. If they need that bridge financing, if they need to be able to get to the next hurdle and BDC is not there, or if there is just a window of opportunity where we can make that investment, we will do that. We really work closely with the community. We work closely with our clients. We really have a good on-the-ground presence in these rural and remote regions.
The other area that I would like to quickly touch upon with respect to making investments in Atlantic Canada in rural and remote regions within that area and across Canada is the $500-billion commitment that we made to broadband. This commitment speaks clearly to the fact that we want to make sure that we deal with the digital divide that currently exists in society, where you have this challenge in rural and remote regions where they cannot access the Internet. That has a tremendous impact on young people and their ability to get good-quality education. As Minister Chagger mentioned, it impacts small businesses. It has a profound impact on individuals to be able to reach their potential and have the opportunity to succeed. That investment is absolutely critical as well.
So we have ACOA and we have broadband. They are two examples of how we are investing in rural and remote regions in Atlantic Canada.
Most recently we made announcements on the connecting Canadians program. This initiative is about investing in direct Internet connectivity to homes. The idea is that we will try to connect 300,000 homes by the end of the program. I think we're very close to hitting that target, if not already exceeding it. Again, it's focusing on the digital divide that's taking place. This ICT adoption, this connectivity to the Internet and accessibility, making sure it's reliable, is absolutely critical in rural and remote regions, particularly in Atlantic Canada.