Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to echo some of the comments made by my colleague from Kam Lake of the importance of fibre redundancy. Even before COVID, we all know the world was quickly moving online but I think, as we have seen with any emergency, access to the internet is essential for communication and the continued efforts of essential services.
Mr. Speaker, right now if there's a forest fire or some idiot shoots the fibre line, we run out of internet. The creation of a fibre redundancy loop allows us, and the communities around the lake, to have a secondary point of access. As already noted, a single day of losing access to internet results in a $4.7 million loss of GDP.
Mr. Speaker, many of us who have stood up in this Chamber have asked for better internet services. We know that our government owns the Mackenzie Valley fibre link, just yesterday we passed money to extend it to Tuktoyaktuk. There's lots of great work to be done by our government but more importantly now, we have Det’on Cho and Northwestel working together with a MOU to build their own Indigenousowned fibre line.
Mr. Speaker, we have some expertise. We've created P3s. We know how to get some money out of the federal government in this area. Really all I'm asking is for a nice political win here, and I'll have questions for the Minister of Finance whether we can get all the parties together and work together to create that fibre redundancy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Members' statements. Member for Great Slave.
