Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that because neither one of us are techies. You can tell just from the tone of the questions and the answers. So I look forward to getting more information from the Minister. But what I'm really looking for is a clear commitment that the internet access problem for Yellowknife school authorities, students, and families here in Yellowknife is going to get fixed. So can the Minister tell us when that problem is going to get fixed here in Yellowknife? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. There's some new information there that I wasn't aware of, but. I noted that in my statement that problems of inadequate internet access continue to be raised with us as Yellowknife MLAs and that they raised this territorially and nationally. So can the Minister tell us what specific solutions and funding is going to be made available to fix this problem here in Yellowknife right now? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to return to the topic of adequate and affordable access to internet services and the barriers facing students and families.

In February 2021, I asked questions of the Ministers of ECE and of Infrastructure regarding the total inadequacy of bandwidth provided to Yellowknife school authorities. I raised the problem after I was told that Yellowknife schools and Aurora College shared an internet connection of 300 megabytes per second provided by the GNWT, which is equivalent to a cable modem at home. Consider that Yellowknife Catholic schools alone has about...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I move that the chair rise and report progress.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Minister for that. I understood that Low Earth Orbit technology really is a benefit for more remote communities, not like Yellowknife. So I want to ask again, the Minister, what is this DCN rollout by Northwestel going to do to improve internet access for Yellowknife school authorities. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Infrastructure, who is responsible for government information technology services.

A year ago the Minister promised a solution for education authorities' internet bandwidth problems through a request for proposal which was to be issued last winter. Can the Minister provide us with a brief update on the status of that work and tell us how close we are to increasing internet bandwidth available to Yellowknife school authorities? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Madam Chair. That's a pretty hard act to follow. But I move that the chair rise and report progress.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. And as my Christmas present, this will probably be the last question I can ask my Cabinet colleagues in 2021.

We have an extensive inventory of contaminated sites so there's lots of work to be done. That work should also be part of a key part of what the polytechnic university might look at as well to help build capacity and capture opportunities for remediation economy.

Will the Minister commit to regularly update regular MLAs on her efforts to secure federal investment to accelerate remediation work? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. And clearly, the approach we've taken to date has been a dismal failure. From what I've seen, we continue to pitch this investment as a way to bail out the extractive sector. Federal support is not a way to backtrack and pollute our pace or absolve the private sector of its liabilities.

So what assurance can the Minister give me that we're going to change our bailout approach and start to make a pitch for an accelerated northern contaminated sites remediation program? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Bah humbug. Sorry, no, honestly I am not Scrooge but there are some more things that I got to talk about.

On April 17, 2020 the federal government announced $1.72 billion in financial assistance for remediation of orphan and inactive oil and gas wells in western Canada as part of Canada’s Economic Response Plan for COVID19. On May 28, October 14, 2020 and February 10, 2021, I made statements in this House about the potential for the NWT to access similar funding, working in partnership with Yukon and Nunavut. As I understand it, the requests from our government...