Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister acknowledge and agree that Highway No. 5 should have continuous cell service installed along its entire 273 kilometres? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Finance is well aware that the territories, including the Northwest Territories, are certainly behind some of our other provincial colleagues, anyways, in Canada in terms of providing cellular coverage on highways. In being aware of that, we are beginning to take steps to find out what options there may be available, to explore what can be done to expand the coverage. The simple reality, Mr. Speaker, is there is no private market for this. There is no way of earning any sort of revenue or profit on this. For this to go forward, there would have to be significant government support of the project, which takes certainly some consideration and planning. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Does the Minister agree that installing cell service along Highway No. 5 will help enhance the highway's safety and help grow the NWT economy?
Certainly, having cellular coverage over our highways would certainly improve safety. There is no question about that. I have not heard of the tourism aspect of it before today, so that is certainly an interesting aspect to have understood. We are taking steps, as I implied with my last answer. We are taking steps right now to have expressions of interest with respect to the highway through to Behchoko, between Behchoko and Yellowknife. It's my hope that, with that information, we will be able to look more broadly at other highways in the Northwest Territories.
Will the Minister commit to including Highway No. 5 in any future contract negotiations for new cell service along highways in the NWT?
As I said, there is right now an expression of interest open really to explore what options there might be, to see whether it's possible or how it would be possible to increase and improve cellular coverage on the highways in the Northwest Territories. Once we have that information in hand, I will certainly be sharing it with my colleagues in the Legislative Assembly, with a view to seeing, again, what we can do to improve coverage for all of the territorial highways. However, again, the first step is to get the information for that first stretch and to see what that can bring to us as some options.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member Thebacha.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to installing cellular service along Highway No. 5 within the life of the 19th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Would that it be so easy. I cannot make that commitment at this point. What I am going to commit to, again, is that we are going to get the information with respect to the stretch of highway between Behchoko and Yellowknife and to see what that costing might be, what those options might be. Once we have that in hand, we can start to look at other stretches of highway in the Northwest Territories. Again, it's not lost on me, the aspect of safety, and it's not lost on me the costs or the fact that we are behind coverage compared to the rest of Canada. There is a lot of attention on this issue right now in terms of cellular coverage, not only here but elsewhere with the federal government, so it certainly is my hope that there may be some options for us. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
