Canada, Quebec to Spend $39.7M for Videotron Broadband for Bas-Saint-Laurent

The federal government and Quebec continue to make announcements on how much money they are spending to expand high-speed internet in the province.

With a total investment of $39.64 million made as part of Canada–Quebec Operation High Speed, 5,300 households in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region will have access to Vidéotron high-speed Internet services by September 2022.

Videotron will receive a combined amount of $34 million from the two levels of government to support the deployment of high-speed Internet services in the region. Over the next few months, Videotron will take an inventory of the targeted regions to ensure that no household will be left without service.

“This is excellent news for the Bas-Saint-Laurent region and for rural Quebec as a whole. The pandemic has shown us how essential high-speed Internet access has become for our communities, not only for bringing people together virtually but also for working, studying and doing business.

Our government understands that it is urgent and vital to connect rural regions throughout Canada, including Quebec.” – The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of National Revenue and Member of Parliament

If the federal and provincial government of Quebec were to leverage SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet, at the cost of $649 per household for startup hardware, it works out to only $3.43 million, which is less than 10% of the total investment cost noted above.