Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, NorthwesTel, a telecommunications company wholly owned by Bell Canada, the largest company in Canada in terms of capitalization, recently stated that it needs an annual subsidy of between $20 and $30 million per year to continue providing phone services in the north after July 1, 2000.

July 1, 2000, Mr. Speaker, is when the telecommunications industry in the Northwest Territories reaches its first milestone in the long distance liberalization game. Long distance providers will be able to compete in NorthwesTel's operating area.

However, if you look at the numbers, the $18 million accounts for $2.5 million averaged annually in expended credits from 1991 to 1998. There are still unreported credits left. NorthwesTel netted $13 million in 1996, and if it did not conveniently write down its cable division last fiscal year, it would have netted $10 million. It is obvious that an annual $2.5 million loss in deferred credit can be easily absorbed by NorthwesTel.

NorthwesTel must have become very comfortable operating as a monopoly. It has requested that Canada's telecommunications company and even the federal government should pay into a national fund aimed at subsidizing service in Canada's high cost regions. I say to NorthwesTel, welcome to reality. Most northern businesses are built on sweat and prowess of determined and insightful entrepreneurs. The telecommunications business should not be any different.

Mr. Speaker, northern business people do not go hat in hand to the government every time there is new competition in town. Northern businesses face competition every day, locally and extra territorially. 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. The more I analyze their proposal, the more apparent it is that NorthwesTel... Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to continue my statement. Thank you.