Dear Maryam Monsef

MP Peterborough – Kawartha.

We are residents of Peterborough and we also have a house in Haliburton which we use as a rental property and summer cottage for ourselves.

The Jan. 24 edition of The Haliburton Echo reported on the closing of a Scotiabank branch in Wilberforce a small town in the east of Haliburton County. It’s the only bank within about 30 minutes’ drive of banks in either Bancroft or Haliburton Village.

This closing is going to cause hardship for residents businesses and especially for seniors without cars in Wilberforce. There’s a committee which has tried to persuade the major banks and credit unions to locate a branch there but none of them will do so even after months of meetings. Not even a bank machine.

As the editorial points out it is ironic that this would be the first town hit with a branch closure due to increased Internet and mobile banking around the country when Wilberforce has cellphone dead zones and patchy Internet coverage.

The committee says provincial and federal governments should be made aware of how crucial their attention and funding will be in the coming years. … These small towns need high-speed Internet reliable cell service and investment in community infrastructure in order to survive.

The committee is considering a letter to the Canada Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission which regulates banks. They say the federal government should at least make sure Wilberforce has the Internet or cell service before banks are allowed to close up in a small community.

If this issue comes across your desk I am asking you to support such a move in the county north of us because even here in Peterborough people understand what it’s like to be lacking crucial services.

Louise Greene

Gay Bell