Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have received concerns about the quality of the NorthwesTel services in the community I represent. As well, I have heard concerns raised to me in Yellowknife about the quality of services, about interac services crashing on busy days in grocery stores, and people being told when they pick up the phone that all circuits are busy, try again later. It is the opinion of the people in Fort Smith that the system they have there, in spite of the good and hard work of the technicians who live there, is inadequate for the needs of Fort Smith. I have had banks tell me in Yellowknife that they cannot get multiple lines into their businesses. I wrote to the president on October 20th. I got a very nice, compassionate letter from the acting assistant vice-president of customer services. This lady who replied to me, seems to be very caring, but my concern is what does the president have to say about the services. Can he not be bothered responding himself? I know they are just a subsidiary of Bell Canada and they are a monopoly up here, but those times are changing. If they want to ensure customer loyalty, I think it would be important for them to make the effort from the highest level on down, to address the needs of the people in the communities.
I would venture to say, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe the people in Fort Smith and Yellowknife are alone in their concerns about the service from NorthwesTel. In fact, on my computer this morning was a message saying, NorthwesTel still cannot figure out what is going on with their communication systems in the north and bear with them, they will try to fix it up. While I thank the acting assistant vice-president for her letter, I am very disappointed that the president himself could not find time to put some attention to this issue. We are not alone in this and competition is coming and, if they want customer loyalty, they are going to have to start working at it because, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, NorthwesTel, in spite of its good employees in the communities, has an image problem if nothing else. Thank you very much.