Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in April during the CRTC public hearings on telecommunication services in the far North, your deputy Minister of Finance testified. In his testimony, he stated that Indigenous households have an internet takeup of only 63 percent compared to 94 percent of other households.
Can the finance minister expand on that point and tell us where this statistic came from and what her thoughts are on those public hearings from CRTC? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a lot there and our submission to CRTC was around 70 pages or so. So let me try to sum up. The statistics of the 63 versus 94 comes from the Northern Canada Internet Use Survey, NCIUS, and that's done by Statistics Canada. This one was from 2021. And, Mr. Speaker, the I would say the public hearings were productive. One very discrete and specific outcome was we saw that NorthwesTel, in fact, agreed with the proposal that we've been advocating for, both at the federal government and publicly, around the Connecting Families 2.0 Initiative.
This is an opportunity where it bridges a digital divide. It's something the Government of Canada keeps telling me is available and yet hasn't been available to residents in the Northwest Territories because we needed an internet service provider to actually participate. So we were pleased that, having raised it yet again, it does seem that we've finally been heard and NorthwesTel will be participating in that program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, overall there's a lack of competition with internet service providers in the NWT. Does the Minister agree that having more options of internet services for the NWT residents will help reduce the household costs of internet and also bolster the speed of internet in the longterm? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, having more competition certainly is one way, traditionally and historically, that improves affordability in a marketplace. It does, of course, rely on there being the infrastructure to provide the options to the market and that is still an area where we are challenged here in the Northwest Territories. As far as the all that said, Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what we've been expressing at CRTC for some time, trying to balance between the fact that we need significant investments to support infrastructure in a marketplace that wouldn't necessarily have the customers to actually then offset the high costs of the infrastructure at the same time wanting to get services into the hands of residents and be affordable and available.
So one of the reforms we've put forward is reforms to the wholesale access provisions within the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker, that are controlled by the CRTC with the hope that does help find that balance between encouraging and allowing for infrastructure development at a high cost while also ensuring that there's a greater affordability for residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain what the Government of the Northwest Territories has done over the course of the 19th Assembly to address the issue of internet disparity between the small communities and regional centres within the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I've certainly advocated to counterparts in the federal government now, several of them indeed, has been exactly on this issue that we face where we not only have a lack of infrastructure to deliver the services, we then have a lack of affordability and we have a lack of redundancy, which for us in the Northwest Territories isn't just a luxury; it means that when one line gets cut, entire communities go without services for significant periods of time. We've suggested ways that the federal government could change their subsidy programs, could change their funding programs. But we've also worked with communities to try to ensure that they are able to apply, where applicable, to these different funding criterias. And I'll look to the example in the Tlicho with the Whati Highway and the ability to support the Tlicho in terms of becoming an applicant. So we certainly are doing, I believe, our part to try to get that message out to modify what we see. And, in fact, the report that the Member referenced earlier makes a lot of the same points, that the funding right now, as is structured around the federal government, needs to be adapted to the needs of the North, needs to be adapted and modified to the needs of the North, and so we're pleased to see the uptake of that message that we've had.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly continue to advocate for all of these things. Again, we're happy to see that we're now part of the northern families subsidy program and opportunities like this, Mr. Speaker, to continue to bring forward around what other needs we have. Satellite is probably one of the next options. I'll stop there, Mr. Speaker, but that's another area where we're going to need to see some options given the delays coming out of LSAT with the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Thebacha.
Mr. Speaker, does the Minister agree that increasing access to highspeed internet will overall help to advance economic reconciliation for Indigenous peoples and communities within the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, Mr. Speaker; absolutely, Mr. Speaker, access to quality, available, affordable, reliable, competitive, internet telecommunications, absolutely that increases economic reconciliation. Mr. Speaker, there's I could stop there but this is an opportunity I know there's times where our federal government counterparts are listening. I know they follow what we say. I hope the CRTC follows what we say here because that is an absolute truth. We're trying to do our part. We need to have private sector involved. We need the federal government to be involved. These are major investments, major infrastructure investments that are needed, not only to bring fibre but where fibre's not feasible or realistic, to ensure that they have those satellite systems up and running, that we are notified well in advance when they're not, that to the extent that there are federal regulations around satellite provision, that they are keeping up to date with the realities on the ground. And, Mr. Speaker, I think the right things are being said. The right things are hopefully going to be happening. The CRTC, while their formal hearing process is over, final submissions are not. So the opportunity to get our message out is not over and we will continue to take that opportunity whenever it arises. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
