Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to speak about the long distance service in the Northwest Territories. The CRTC recently ruled that they are going to open long distance services to competition here in the north which will open it up to companies like Sprint and AT&T who have been waiting awhile to open competition here. The GNWT has supported and asked for this to happen as well, as long as everyone is able to get affordable phone services. In order to do this, the GNWT has asked that the CRTC establish a fund to subsidize small communities so that they can have affordable phone services. Obviously, Sprint and AT&T will not pay one penny toward local services otherwise, but somebody has to pay for local services, Mr. Speaker. Someone has to go out and fix the telephone lines when they get knocked over or something like that. NorthwesTel cannot afford to do all these local services and still compete for long distance rates that Sprint and AT&T are going to be bringing in. This is why I support this initiative that the GNWT is after for the fund. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it would be conceivable that some communities might totally lose services that they have been waiting so long to get. Even this last year, I believe there were a few that finally got telephone services. The CRTC will be holding hearings this summer and I urge people to attend these meetings and to put in written submissions if you cannot attend to support the start up of this fund. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

--Applause