Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to reiterate a point that I think is made in the last three motions here, is that we pay Northwestel about $10 million a year right now. We co-own a $100 million fibre line with them. The CRTC and the federal government gives them hundreds of millions of dollars in public money every single year and yet, consistently, we do not advocate or hold them accountable to allow competition in the market. I understand that they are largely, the only regulated internet service monopoly in Canada, and there's some fighting that has to happen at the CRTC that does that. But to date, we have built publicly-funded infrastructure and then not allowed third party competition on it. We have failed to get the last mile to home in a lot of communities, and I think the way to do that is leverage our position of giving Northwestel millions of dollars every single year to get some things out of them, and I just haven't been seeing that to date. So I hope that the Minister takes these recommendations seriously. I know there's some ongoing projects in cooperation with Northwestel, but, really, we have to make sure that when taxpayer money is used to build internet infrastructure, that wholesale high-speed third party access is allowed so some competition can maybe emerge in this monopoly. Thank you.
Rylund Johnson on Committee Motion 169-19(2): Committee Report 22-19(2): Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on Telecommunications - Wholesale High-Speed Third-Party Internet Access, Carried
In the Legislative Assembly on December 7th, 2021. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 169-19(2): Committee Report 22-19(2): Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on Telecommunications - Wholesale High-Speed Third-Party Internet Access, Carried
Consideration Of Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
December 7th, 2021
Page 3304
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