Ma question est pour le premier ministre.

In my riding, many people and businesses are relying on slow, unreliable, expensive Internet. I have met with every Internet provider; none of them is interested in setting up in Nickel Belt. There is no money to be made. You can pay for all the infrastructure, they’re not coming. So we use phone lines with a five-megabit download and a two-megabit upload. How can businesses thrive with this?

The government claims they’ll spend billions on broadband, but last year they spent less than 2% of that money. Will the government finally get that money out the door and put in place a government-run system for fast, reliable Internet at a reasonable price?

Interjections.

Thank you very much to the member opposite.

Our government truly recognizes how important access to high-speed Internet is, no matter where you live in the province of Ontario. I think we can all agree that COVID has certainly changed things and made it a necessity in terms of being able to educate your child, being able to contact your doctor and/or work from home, which is why our government is investing $4 billion to make sure that every single premises in the province of Ontario is connected by the end of 2025.

I would just remind the member opposite that this is the most ambitious high-speed Internet broadband program in the country.

We are not only investing $4 billion—

Interjections.

Again, I will repeat: An investment of $4 billion is a historic financial investment in the province of Ontario.

We have also taken the initiative to present legislation in this House to expedite the delivery of broadband, high-speed Internet projects across this province, and we are consistently interacting with Internet service providers that have participated, be it in our application-based programming, our partnership with the federal government, or our reverse option to make sure that even the toughest, hardest-to-reach places are invested in. We will get everyone connected.