You raise broadband, which I think is an excellent example. You may be aware that in the case of the Northwest Territories, fibre is being laid right up the Mackenzie Valley through a P3 project. That's a project that went to market as a public-private partnership, and the intent there, of course, is to connect all the remote communities.
There is another project under way right now in Manitoba, bringing 57 first nations communities together. Again, it's a broadband project aimed at connecting those communities.
These are individual projects that are moving ahead as P3s. There's lots of interest by the private sector in financing thee initiatives and bringing them to fruition.
What would be interesting in the case of the Canada infrastructure bank is that if they went ahead with a national broadband strategy and took the potential of these smaller projects global, because Canada, as you may know, used to be a leader in broadband and has tumbled quite a way down now.... I think if we are serious about playing at a world standard with 5G or bigger, we need to put the infrastructure in place to make it happen.
You've raised what I think is a really interesting initiative.
I'll make just one other point. We at the council have been promoting what we're calling a “dig once policy”, by which we mean that every time the government puts a shovel in the ground, particularly for major projects, they should capitalize on that opportunity and lay fibre right then and there to ensure that we can get our gigabyte capacity up. It's a rounding error in terms of cost, relative to the main act that's taking place.