Merci, Monsieur le President. Recent media reports indicate that the Anik F2 telecommunications satellite depended on by eight NWT communities could fail as early as February 2023. An on-board failure of equipment means the satellite could be out of service three years sooner than anticipated, cutting off phone and internet services. Obviously, this disruption in service can't be allowed to happen.
Not surprisingly, satellite failure will impact some of our smallest and remote communities that rely on satellite because they aren't or can't be looped in to microwave, broadband, or fibre link networks. This reliance on satellites already poses big challenges for community organizations and members faced with incredibly low data speeds and correspondingly high usage charges. It's a Telesat Canada satellite but the contractor and supplier of the service is NorthwesTel.
The telecommunications firm is reported to be working for Telesat for a work-around to maintain service. That could include temporary or permanent switchover to another satellite channel supplier, such as the current low earth orbit OneWeb satellite, or signing on to the SpaceEx Starlink system when it's up and running.
There's a potential collateral benefit that switching to another provider could actually improve the service, hopefully by bolstering data speeds. Telesat is quoted in media reports as having said that they are going to have "extensive mitigation strategies in place to ensure continuity of service" by "collaborating weekly with regulators and customers."
It is hard to understand mitigation when it's a matter of service being either there or not.
As the potential February failure date approaches, I am sure community customers are looking for reassurance and commitment from this government to make sure everything possible is being done to prevent even one day's outage. I will have questions for the Minister of finance on how this government is working on behalf of these communities to ensure continuity of telecommunications services when Anik 2 crashes to earth. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.