Steve Norn

Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today, I want to talk about the cost of the speed of home Internet and home Internet rates in the NWT, and how we're all connected during this pandemic. One thing I've noticed during this crisis, and I've mentioned this before, is that many of our territory's long-standing issues, such as lack of housing, lack of access to healthcare, and also lack of access to high-speed Internet, have all been amplified issues for people across the NWT.

Internet need in particular has been more pronounced than usual, especially because everyone has been required to stay home for a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we rise and report progress.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have nothing further.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the Minister for the response. I think it's always important we always continually have that feedback with all our policies because things are always changing, always evolving. It's always keeping things up to date always. That is good to know. My next question is: when are we going to expect to see this overarching review of this policy? Thank you.

Marsi cho, Madam Chair. Committee would like to consider Tabled Document 30-19(2), Main Estimates 2020-2021, Department of ITI.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for those responses. I did have another question, but I would just try to navigate my way through this. Just from hearing your responses, I think it's important that we need to know what is being done now to fix this problem. I want to hear what the Minister has to say to fix this problem now. Marsi cho.

Thank you to the Minister for that response. I guess, for the other part of my Member's statement, I mentioned the fibre optic link. I was just wondering why Lutselk'e was bypassed as part of this plan.

Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I'll be brief. The average Internet connection speed around the world, one of the fastest in the world is Taiwan, so that's pretty fast. The Canadian average is 30 megabytes per second. Comparatively, just to give a glimpse of what it's like in the North, in Alberta, their fibre 300-plus package is 300 megabytes per second, and that's unlimited. One of the kind of mid-range packages for Northwestel, their 50 package, is 50 megabytes per second, and that's not unlimited, so you're only allowed 200 gigabytes. So, if we get more unlimited packages in the North, that would...

Marsi cho, Madam Chair. I move that we rise and report progress.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that response. I guess that leads me to another question. Let's say, if there was that one deciding vote, and it could be any one of us, we could be somewhere in any of the small communities, for whatever reason, and all the attention was on us. All of a sudden, it was that one vote. Would there be something built into this bill stating that you would suspend the sitting until we heard the vote come through? Marsi cho.