P.E.I. to start cutting cords, reducing number of landlines

P.E.I.'s finance minister announced Tuesday the province is issuing a request for proposals seeking a new two-year contract to provide cellular and smartphone service for government and civil service employees.

Allan Roach made the announcement in the provincial legislature after a question period during which the Opposition criticized the amount of money government spends on phones.

PC MLA Colin LaVie told the House government is spending $2 milliona year to maintain 6,900 landline phones, plus approximately $1.2 million a year to maintain 1,952 mobile phones. The Opposition obtained some of the information through a Freedom of Information request.

Afterwards, Roach told reporters government plans to reduce the number of landlines it uses by up to 40 per cent.

"We are looking at all those lines because...our workforce is much more mobile, and so we're going to respond to that and I expect we'll see decreases in the amount of landlines across the province, significant decreases," he said.

While government is looking for a new contract for cellphone service, its existing contract for landline service with Bell Aliant has been a source of controversy going back to 2009, the year it was signed.

Full details of the untendered contract were only made available to the public in January of this year. Those details show the P.E.I. government made a financial commitment of $23 million for phone service over an 11-year period, untilthe end of 2019. The contract also requires government pay for a minimum of 2,501 landlines.