I want to thank the public servants for their presentations. I agree that the subject of our study is very broad.
I want to address two aspects. I first want to look at the digital and cellular aspect, then at the diesel aspect referred to by Mr. Presutti.
Maybe I'll start with the diesel aspect. I'm very pleased that our government has seen it fit to invest so significantly in clean energy transmission for northern and remote communities. It's really important, and these communities have been calling for this for some time. I'd like to know what investments were made prior to 2015 to shift communities away from diesel and toward clean energy. I just don't know if this is the first time it's been done.
Second, I wonder how far south communities need to be in order to benefit from this program. For example, would a community like Rapid Lake, in the northern end of the Pontiac, be a potential beneficiary of this kind of transition, were it to seek funding to shift away? In that same context, there may be communities that seek to shift to hydroelectricity rather than wind or solar, so they need to be hooked up to the grid.
If that's the situation, what kind of support is available to such communities? Typically, they are not used to paying hydro rates. They're used to having diesel paid for by the federal government. I wonder how that transition happens, when the energy needs of a community cease to be provided for by the federal government and are suddenly provided for by a provincial energy company.