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All Community Access Program (CAP) sites giving Islanders public access to the internet are closing.
Thirty-eight locations in the province will be closed by the end of the month when a new funding formula for the Industry Canada program is put in place.
The federal government said it won't fund any CAP site within 25 km of a public library after the end of this month.
P.E.I. is the only province to lose all of its CAP sites.
Ten full-time employees will also lose their jobs as a result of the cut.
"Well, again, it indicates the concern for Prince Edward Island that the Harper government has. I don't know how many times we have to be slammed by this government. It's unfortunate," said Cardigan MP Lawrence MacAulay. "You know, this hurts. This takes our connection away from the world. It takes the rural connection to the world away from many people. This is very unfortunate and we have to push the government to reinstate this funding."
The federal government provided $595,000 to run the CAP sites on P.E.I.
More than 84,000 people logged onto the internet from a CAP site last year.
"With the cut of this program, I can see rural communities continuing to fall behind, because that is the case with all CAP sites on Prince Edward Island. They are part of the infrastructure of our rural community," said Elizabeth Wilson, coordinator of the Afton Computer Club and the Cornwall CAP site. "And to give someone, even a sense, who lives in a large city, how small rural communities are is quite difficult because most of them have had no interaction in rural communities and how devastating this kind of a cut can be to them."
MacAulay is urging all Islanders concerned about the cuts to let the federal government know exactly what they think.
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