Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I made a statement on the CRTC loosening up its regulations here in the Northwest Territories to allow more infrastructure communication. My question is directed at the Minister of Finance. As part of the extension of the Mackenzie Highway to the north, is the Minister committed to assist in ways of expanding cell services to Fort Providence and other small communities?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are two things of interest to the Member, of course: the fibre optic line that’s being proposed to go up the valley hooking Inuvik in as a remote sensing site and then coming down the valley, which would allow us to lateral off and hook into all the communities to provide fibre optic services which would include cell phone services. That is a project that is underway.
The other thing of interest in the CRTC ruling is not only that they opened the door to competition but they took NorthwesTel to task for lack of investment in their aging infrastructure, they refused to grant them their request for a $2 per month rate increase, and they also put them on notice that they have two years to come together with a plan that’s going to lay out how they’re going to invest and modernize what they described as their aging infrastructure.
I think the Minister has clearly indicated a clear commitment for ensuring that the fibre optics line is completed and becomes a reality. At the same time we’re faced with increasing competition, which is, overall, good for the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister again if there has been any preliminary analysis or any kind of studies to indicate that there is a need for perhaps expansion of cellular service in small communities including Fort Providence for the general public safety.
This is a business decision and I can let the Member know that in Fort Smith, for example, it took us years and years of lobbying to convince NorthwesTel to invest, and they brought in an old cell phone tower from somewhere else even though they knew when they asked for a minimum of 250 subscribers. If you went to Fort Smith now, as we told them would happen, they probably have close to 500 or 600 or 700.
Every man, woman and child in the community has a cell phone. This is a business issue. The reason we’re looking at the fibre optic line is because it makes good sense for us as a government to provide that infrastructure and allow that business development to occur. NorthwesTel, as I’ve indicated, has just been taken to task. There are opportunities for them in the communities, and CRTC has told them to go in and modernize and invest in their infrastructure, which to me would mean cell phone service.
Just a final question to the Minister, perhaps just again to see if there’s any formal commitment to consider small communities in terms of their access to cellular service. We all know that once they expand communication infrastructure to all communities, then obviously there’s also a business interest for small communities and give them an equal opportunity equal to all communities in the North.
That is one of our interests and one of the reasons that we, when we looked at the fibre optic line, rather than going laterally north or west, sorry, to the Yukon, we looked at the plan to run the fibre optic line down the valley to hook in down by Fort Simpson so that we would be able to in fact provide those services and infrastructure improvements to the communities up and down the valley.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Just a final question. Has the Department of Finance or any other department considered perhaps a report or an analysis of the possibility of expanding cell service to the smaller communities such as Fort Providence? We all know and recognize that the bridge becoming a reality perhaps within a year or so there will be an increase in public traffic and more likely an increased need for public safety to ensure that communication infrastructure is properly set in place, especially for a community like Fort Providence.
The fibre optic proposal is at the stage where there’s a business case being put together to look at and quantify the business benefits up and down the valley, other than the Inuvik component which is very clearly a business case that has already been made. To put that infrastructure into the communities up and down the valley, that work is being done and we expect that report to be concluded in March of this coming year.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
