Hello, my name is Catherine Pellerin, and I'm a citizen of the Northwest Territories. I wasn't planning on presenting, but hearing everybody else got me thinking about the CBC.
The Northwest Territories has a great tradition of storytelling, so I'll start with a really brief story. The CBC brought the Northwest Territories to the rest of Canada. The NWT stopped being just a colour on the map during the Berger inquiry. That was a vital time. That was when many of us became aware of the Northwest Territories.
Many years after that--21 years ago--I was living in Edmonton. Circumstances in my life changed, and I found myself moving to Frobisher Bay. At that point in time I left my career, and I was at home with a toddler, with another one on the way. It seemed to me that the most important question had to do with the CBC; did the eastern Arctic have the CBC?
In those days, the GNWT had a representative, down in Edmonton and I think also perhaps in Ottawa, providing information and selling the NWT to people moving there. My important phone call was on whether they had the CBC in Frobisher Bay, and, more importantly, whether they got Morningside. When she did some research and told me, yes, they did, I said okay, I can move to Frobisher Bay.
CBC was the only channel in Frobisher Bay when I moved there, and for the most part it was excellent. It brought us Hockey Night in Canada, although sometimes a day late. It also brought us midget wrestling on Friday nights--