Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the CBC provides a vital link across the North, linking all of the communities, providing us a way to keep track of what is happening in this vast territory. We have 33 communities as well as Fort Chipewyan. Mr. Speaker, however, there is a significant problem, in my mind, on how resources are distributed across the North when it comes to CBC coverage. In Yellowknife, we look at the phone listings. There are 74 positions for CBC. In Inuvik, they do somewhat better. They have five to cover the North. The South Slave to cover all of the southern part of the territory including Fort Chip, there is one person. There is very little community reporting ability available. The person in the South Slave is a long-term employee, one of the best in the business. She just took on territorial duties so she has even less time to go to the communities than she had before. The paper media in the South Slave from Hay River and Fort Smith are commenting that they are the only ones covering events because the CBC is no longer present there. In Inuvik, they have the same struggles trying to cover all of the communities they have up there with the five people they have and the limited resources.

Mr. Speaker, I have raised this issue with CBC. As a northern communication arm, it is so important to us. They should be taking the steps to redistribute these resources a little more equitably. Ideally, it would be nice if they had more resources that they could actually put out to the field. When you look at the positions that are there, 74 in Yellowknife, five for the whole Inuvik region and one for the whole South Slave, clearly the balance is not right. They have a ton of bureaucratic reasons why it is so and how important it is to have all of these folks huddled here in the capital. They don’t even have on-the-ground in-the-communities in-the-North community reporters like they used to have that they would call in with what is happening in their communities. So we have even less community input into this very important meeting that connects us all.

Mr. Speaker, I know that this is not a government issue, but this is a public forum. I know CBC is listening. CBC is important. They should be close to the people. Thank you.

---Applause