Newfoundland and Labrador

    Newfoundland and Labrador have long histories of community organizations that, for the most part, tend to work together to identify community social needs, and to deliver local services in the out-port locations. Examples include the public school boards, the regional development boards, community radio and television, the community colleges, public libraries, community centres, Memorial University, unions, the fishing industry and out-reach literacy groups. Often these community organizations work in conjunction with local HRD offices and with provincial and federal governments.

    What is interesting about Newfoundland and Labrador is that when one considers the province's population there are more CLNs in the province than in either Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. Why is this? Is it likely that communities in the province are more knowledgeable about the program, or do community groups and organizations have a greater understanding about local social needs and service delivery? If this is so, then it would benefit the other Atlantic provinces to gain information about their best practices. However, the major problem that CLN's face is long term secure funding. It is important to keep in mind that CLN's of Atlantic Canada are under-represented when compared to other provinces such as British Columbia and Ontario.

    In Newfoundland and Labrador, there are still a couple of challenges regarding CLN development primarily in the areas of CLN development and pilots which have not occurred in Labrador, and that there is not enough sharing of knowledge with CAPS. As noted by the provincial manager of the CAP program, often modern information communication technologies are not available to many of the people who live in the remote and rural communities. Federal government departments do not always comprehend the remoteness of many of the communities in these provinces and others. It is one thing for a government to make predictions that ICT and the information highway will end geographic distance. It is quite another thing to ‘make it so,' in order for all Canadians to benefit from the information society and the knowledge economy. What this indicates is that the digital divide is also evident in Canadian communities, and in order to understand its extent, more in-depth research is needed.