Thank you.
By way of introduction, my name is Curtis Shaw. I'm the general manager of Northwestel Cable in Yellowknife.
Northwestel Cable is a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwestel. We are the incumbent local exchange carrier operating across the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the top third of British Columbia. Northwestel's services include local telephone, long distance, high-speed data, video conferencing, and, through subsidiary operations, wireless and cable television services.
Northwestel Cable here in Yellowknife and our four other operations carry a number of CBC services. CBC North and CBC Montreal are on basic cable, and CBC Newsworld is also on cable. We carry CBC television feeds from Calgary, Toronto, Regina, and Halifax on our digital cable service, as well as various CBC southern and northern radio stations.
The purpose of my presentation is not to go over the comments this committee will likely hear from other cable companies and competitive television broadcasters in southern Canada. I was hoping to take this time today to talk a little bit about northern Canada and the important role CBC North plays in the north today.
If I can start with affordability, for many northerners CBC plays an integral role in bringing the rest of the world to a remote community. In fact in many communities across northern Canada, local CBC radio and television broadcasts are the only entertainment and information source available to residents. A number of communities across the north don't have a local cable television provider, while direct-to-home satellite services such as Star Choice and Bell ExpressVu may be cost-prohibitive.
I'll give you an example. In the mid-1990s, Northwestel built several cable systems across the north. In the Yukon, we built cable systems in Watson Lake, Haines Junction, and Old Crow. In the Northwest Territories, we built cable systems in Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik, Fort Good Hope, Fort Resolution, and Tulita. In Nunavut, we built cable systems in Pangnirtung and Nanisivik.
By the year 2000, five years after we built these systems, all of them were losing money. The subscriber numbers declined dramatically due to competition from direct-to-home satellite. More importantly, customers in these communities simply could not afford to pay their cable television bills. In the years following, most of these systems were closed, and a few were transferred to the local community co-op.
In the north, direct-to-home satellite services are available to residents in communities without cable television providers. If you live in one of these communities or in the north, you can get Bell ExpressVu and you can get Star Choice. However, in some of the estimates we've done, up to 40% of customers in these remote communities are receiving television and radio programming exclusively from either CBC North or the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, APTN. That figure is dramatically higher than what you would see in Toronto, in a southern Canadian city.
To talk a little bit about northern language and culture, one thing I will say is that CBC North provides a very pan-northern perspective for local news and culture. No private sector today delivers as much television and radio programming, especially in aboriginal languages. CBC provides a local news show across the north, Monday to Friday, and they also provide it to Nunavut and the Northwest Territories in Inuktitut.
The emergence of new media has provided consumers with more choice in how they receive news, entertainment, and cultural programming. The Internet allows customers to stream audio and radio stations from around the world straight into their homes. In fact the majority in northern communities today now have access to at least one high-speed Internet provider in their community. Satellite subscription radio is available in most areas in northern Canada.
CBC North is playing an important role in delivering regional news and broadcast services to northern residents using the Internet. On the CBC website, northern residents can listen to streaming audio feeds of CBC North radio from Inuvik, Iqaluit, Whitehorse, and Yellowknife, and streaming feeds of the CBC North's television programming, including Northbeat and Igalaaq.
In terms of operational costs, CBC North today operates in the same geographical region as Northwestel. The north spans over four million square kilometres, in four time zones. The majority of communities are served exclusively by satellite. Across these four million square kilometres are 100,000 residents.
Some of the operational costs that CBC North faces are the same as for our company. Delivering service and maintaining infrastructure, rising labour costs, transportation costs, technology costs, along with the unpredictability of our northern weather are daily factors that CBC would deal with in delivering broadcast services to northern audiences.
As a cable provider, we believe our residential customer base would be opposed to paying additional charges for CBC carried on cable television, especially given that here in Yellowknife, CBC is available to households on a free-to-air antenna. We currently pay a per-subscriber rate for CBC Newsworld, but we are opposed to paying a per-subscriber rate for CBC North.
Does the CBC compete with the private sector in northern Canada? As CBC radio is commercial-free and CBC television is the primary regional broadcaster, pretty much the only broadcaster focused on northern Canada, the answer is clearly no. Cuts to CBC funding in northern Canada will mean a reduction in radio and television news and cultural programming, a void unlikely to be filled by the private sector.
As broadcasting competition evolves in southern Canada and funding from traditional advertising sources declines, the funding mandate and governance of CBC must evolve. So I would close this presentation by asking the committee to consider the important essential service the CBC provides across the three northern territories, and request that the committee recognize the importance of the unique services delivered by CBC North today. Many northern residents would like to see the number of northern services expanded in the communities to include more aboriginal language and community programming.
In closing, the private sector will never provide northern Canadians with the entertainment, cultural, and news programming currently being delivered by CBC North. There is an important and continuing role for a public broadcaster, especially in the three northern territories.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.