If anyone deserves an operational subsidy, Mr. Speaker, it would be northern businesses who have been paying the exorbitant rates we have for our phone services for many, many years. If Northwestel cannot maintain local services, then I am confident that there is someone out there who can. Small communities lose money Antoine said, however, that alternative long distance providers are likely to compete for business only in the NWT's larger centres, scooping up revenues that Northwestel now uses to subsidize its money-losing operations in the small communities. For his part, Yellowknife North MLA Roy Erasmus said he supports the idea of a telecommunications fund to subsidize local service in small communities. Without it, Erasmus said, some communities might lose their telephone services.
Someone has to go out and fix the telephone lines when they get knocked over or something like that.
The CRTC has invited northerners to participate in the proceedings, which begin May 26 in Whitehorse. A second public hearing will be held in Iqaluit June 25. Northwestel has released a submission to the CRTC showing that the company loses money in 90 per cent of the communities it serves. Revenues generated in Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Iqaluit and Fort Nelson, B.C., currently pay the cost of providing telephone service to these smaller communities. Northwestel has run the telecommunications system in the Baffin and Keewatin regions of Nunavut since 1992, when Bell Canada transferred its money-losing assets in those regions to Northwestel.