Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will this government work closely with NorthwesTel to collectively ensure measures are in place to prevent future problems with the telecommunications systems in the Beaufort-Delta and across the North? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Well, that’s good. I already got a yes for telecommunications and all the money that they’re going to give to NorthwesTel for getting fibre optics, I guess.
Mr. Speaker, will this government work in the region and the communities with NorthwesTel to identify weaknesses in the telecommunications system and develop a comprehensive backup system so that major storms can’t knock out the system and they can still operate telecommunications in the communities? Thank you.
NorthwesTel manages its own day-to-day operations. We are involved through a number of different areas, but there will be a critical debriefing done. We recognize that there was a significant portion of the Territory that was cut off from communications. One of the reasons, in fact, that we’ve put out an RFP to do some initial work on the fibre optics line up to Inuvik is to, in fact, try to better address some of those issues. But to keep in mind, though, as the weather events around the world increase in extremities and to the degree of how intense they are, that it’s going to be a problem that man has little control over. But I take the Member’s point and we are doing a number of things to make sure that we try to avoid these kinds of issues in the future. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the phone lines were out in the community of Tuk for five days. The Minister is right that we can’t control the weather, but we had Ice Wireless cell phones working in the communities. So what can NorthwesTel do with either using Ice Wireless microwaves to work in the communities or what’s possible in regard to getting the fibre optics into the communities, all of the communities, not just into Inuvik? Thank you.
Those are all good questions that, hopefully, we’ll get addressed as we do this critical debriefing, as the weather subsided and services restored, and we can take that careful measured look at what happened and what needs to be done to avoid this type of circumstance in the future. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last year I brought up the same issue, one year almost to the day in regard to the same problem we had up in the Delta. This debriefing, I’d really like to see if we could bring NorthwesTel in here either with one of the committees or into the House here to get questions in regard to what happened and what they’re going to do to make a better system for the Beaufort-Delta. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m sure NorthwesTel would actually look forward to an opportunity to be invited before committee. They’re a private operation that runs... They have contracts; they have services they provide. We have a lot of vested interest with them. We are going to take steps to see how do we avoid this in the future to get a better idea of what steps they’re going to take to address some of the concerns that the Member has raised. At the same time, we’re going to proceed with our plan to see about setting the pieces in place that will allow us to proceed with trying to get a fibre optics line from Inuvik to the south and hooking in the communities along the way. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
