Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 5th, 2018

[Curtis Shaw]

From a wholesale standpoint, we have companies like Telus, we have AllStream, we have SSi Micro and we have Iristel. We've got big national global players that are serving banks and government departments. Then we have smaller wholesalers that are serving more regional interests in the north. Wholesale is a fairly large piece of our business as an organization.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

How does the resource development that happens, the mining and oil patch stuff, drive your business?

[Curtis Shaw]

The resource sector is interesting. The mining industry, predominantly, is satellite based. We've provided a diamond field microwave service to the diamond mines outside of Yellowknife. The resource industry does peak at times. Obviously, we had northern B.C. with shale gas that we ran a number of microwave links into. Here in Yukon, Victoria Gold is under construction right now, and we have a hybrid fibre microwave connection into the site.

Those mining investments have helped us smooth out our financials over the years when one region may be booming and another region may be a little more economically pressed.

Right now, I'd say that the Yukon revenue outlook looks a lot better from a GDP and a mining and a resource sector standpoint. Northwest Territories and where we operate in northern B.C. are a little more pressed and a little more muted from a GDP growth standpoint.

We're fortunate that we cover four different regions and we can balance the economics out region by region.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You talked about these microwave outfits. That's a temporary thing, is it not, for the life of the mine, so to speak?

[Curtis Shaw]

Typically a microwave investment made for a mine might be 10 or 15 years in duration. The diamond field microwave length that we have north of Yellowknife is constructed with a 15- to 20-year life. Once the mines go under remediation and start shutting down, we'd remove those towers and bring the land back to its original state.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Are there any communities that are near there that could piggyback off that, or usually not?

[Curtis Shaw]

Typically there are not. On the diamond mines themselves, there is really no population of consequence leading out to those mines. The Victoria Gold example in the Yukon is basically a spur off a community link that we have, so there is really not much benefit to the mass market population.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Other than that it brings you into the territory in general.

[Curtis Shaw]

Absolutely. It catches the general economic growth.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You need a backbone to bring it back home, kind of thing.

[Curtis Shaw]

Yes, that's correct.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You talked about transportation costs being a large part of your business. Have you noticed any impacts of the carbon tax on your business operations?

[Curtis Shaw]

Not yet; it's forward looking. The carbon tax impacts two facets of our business. One is obviously the cost to generate power at our prime power sites where we're consuming diesel, and obviously commercial power that we purchase. The third thing in the north would be really the cost to our employees, the cost of living. Our average northern employees have to heat a home. In some of our jurisdictions it's below freezing for eight or nine months of the year. It's something that we're monitoring right now, looking at how we deal with the cost of living increases that our employees are faced with.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Do you see your company growing dramatically in the next 10 years in the northern regions?

[Curtis Shaw]

Generally, the company has grown kind of in parallel with northern economic growth. In some years it's been growing faster in previous areas, such as Yukon, for example. In Nunavut, we're investing quite heavily right now. We are seeing growth on the horizon for the next three or four years, but obviously in the telecommunications industry there are competitive pressures and new entrants, such as LEO satellite, so the landscape will shift quite dramatically over the next five or six years.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Are you participating at all in the low-flying satellite technology?

[Curtis Shaw]

We're in discussions with a couple of providers today about the potential. We're not directly investing in that market. It may be something we partner with, or we might work out a supply arrangement in the future.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You mentioned the Mackenzie Valley connection line. Could you explain what that is a little bit more?

[Curtis Shaw]

A number of years ago, the Government of the Northwest Territories went through a P3 tender process to build a fibre line from the southern part of the Northwest Territories up to Inuvik, which is north of the Arctic Circle.

There were a couple of things the government wanted to do. Number one, they wanted lower costs for residents from a telecommunications standpoint. Number two, they wanted to be able to serve space agencies that were co-locating dishes in Inuvik for international space centre traffic. We have the European space centre there. We have the Swedish space agency co-located there. They typically are putting these satellite dishes in for telemetry, GIS mapping and weather mapping. The nice thing about Inuvik is that it's located on the other side of the world from some of these European space agencies. That was another driver for the network.

When they put the network in place, there was a tender that we were awarded with Ledcor. We formed a partnership with Ledcor and we ran 1,000 kilometres of fibre network to Inuvik, and we're maintaining that fibre network on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories for the next 20 years. It was an example of a public-private partnership coming together, a competitive tender process, obviously with various benefits for the communities along the route and then obviously all the economic diversification that they were looking for in Inuvik.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

The questioning now moves to MP Rachel Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

Thank you all for being here with us today. I'm going to start my questions with President Lampe and First Minister Mitchell.

Thank you so much for your presentation. One of the things you talked about in your presentation was that you were starting to see a little bit of work being done around housing. We've heard again and again about the huge challenges for these regions around housing. Could you just tell us a little bit about what the gap looks like and how long you think it's going to take for you to fill in that gap?

[Johannes Lampe]

Thank you.

This question will go to Minister Mitchell.

[Kate Mitchell]

Thank you for your question. That's one area that I hope I can give you some answers on, because I'm responsible for housing.

When we did our original housing needs assessment before we got this federal funding from the federal government, there was no identified funding for our region and what we were getting from Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation was a really small amount. There was none identified for Inuit specifically.

When we did our first needs assessment, I think there was a need for something like 190 homes. We had a lot of overcrowding and things like that, but in the last number of years, we've spent at least $1 million a year on housing repairs. As President Lampe mentioned, we have the prototype in place and we're using the data that we collect from that to develop our own building codes and standards. We've done our risk assessment, our needs assessment, and we looked at a housing delivery agency model. We took a bill to the House and we're looking at passing a housing bill to deal with everything.

Right now, we do have another unit that we started in Nain to help children in care or children who would otherwise be taken into care because there's still a lot of overcrowding.

We've been moving along. We do two different home repair programs and we would have built another seven-plex this year, but one of the challenges that we face is the land that's available to build on and good building land. We are starting to make a significant difference in our communities.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you for that.

You also talked about energy security and some of the challenges you have there. Could you expand a little bit, as we didn't get to hear that part of your report?

[Johannes Lampe]

The Nunatsiavut Assembly tabled a bill. We have hired a consultant to look at the energy needs that we have in Nunatsiavut—not just to look at the needs within the communities, but also what would be environmentally friendly. We're looking at getting away from the diesel generation, which Nunatsiavut communities have become dependent on, and to look at new ways that we could harness the natural elements, like wind and solar energy. We are working with the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and different agencies to help us move forward on this issue and to make energy efficiency more affordable for Labrador Inuit.

Right now it's moving forward in a positive way, and we feel that we want to accomplish something that will help not just Labrador Inuit, but also other Canadians.