Evidence of meeting #43 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was yukon.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce
It depends on how you consult, I would guess.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. Nicholls.
Mr. Daniel, go ahead please for up to five minutes.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses.
Mr. Chair, I'm just going to change the direction a little bit. In your presentations, you talked about the major infrastructure issues like roads and electricity, etc. But in this day and age we really need to stay connected with infrastructure such as the Internet and Internet access to remote places. Can you talk a little bit about that in terms of what you have and what is planned for the future?
President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce
We are starting to experience a shortage of broadband width in the territory. For example, the Yukon College—based in Whitehorse but with campuses throughout the territory—delivers some of its classes via video conference but has actually had to cancel classes on occasion because it didn't have the broadband width to deliver the whole class. Our society is changing, and there's so much more downloading through the Internet, digital TV, and the games that the kids play.
It's not only our capacity that's at risk here. We also don't have redundancy in our connection to the south, so if there is an accident with the line and it's cut as a result of construction or if something else happens to it, we're without any communication whatsoever to the south, the east, and the west.
So it is a concern in the territory. As far as the steps being taken to address it are concerned, at this point in time I think we're at the early stages of identifying the problem and then working on a plan to see what can be done about it. The redundancy is a huge issue on top of the capacity.
President, Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce
We have an exciting piece of infrastructure that has huge potential in the Inuvik region in the Beaufort Delta area and that's a satellite recovery station. We need a fibre optic link to run down the Mackenzie Valley to connect us to the south. There is a huge economic opportunity in the Inuvik region for broadband. When I was speaking with the president of Northwestel here, our communications provider for the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, he said that they would establish a redundant line down the Dempster Highway to connect this fibre optic link.
Like the Yukon we have a problem with redundancy; we have a single line south. As this project goes forward we will have the opportunity to open up many communities down the Mackenzie Valley to broadband capabilities.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Are there any other infrastructure issues that need to be dealt with in addition to these major ones?
President, Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce
Certainly in the Northwest Territories we have just opened up our territory to competition—much of which is going to happen in the Yukon as well. So as we see more business players come into the communities to offer alternative services, such as broadband telephone service, telephone access, and television, we'll see northern innovation again spark up and solve the problems of that connectivity.
President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce
One of the things we haven't touched on in terms of infrastructure is port access in the north, either in the high Arctic, or Yukon, which has been very successful in accessing a port in Alaska through the community of Skagway. Particularly, when you're looking at transportation of your resources, port access would be a huge benefit to the resource extraction industry.
As well, port rail is another area that has been investigated for the Yukon. We currently do not have rail service to the south. Again, that would be a huge benefit to the resource extraction community.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
In terms of the aboriginal communities, do they have enough access to education and the proper training? Is there a partnership between industry on the actual requirements they need to fill the jobs, so that we're not chasing more people from foreign countries to come in as temporary workers?
President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce
Sorry, Hugh. We'll go alphabetical. I'm going first.
In Yukon, the Mine Training Association does have private sector partnerships. The mining community proponents do invest financially, as well as with their time and perspective on the training requirements they have, to ensure we're training people for the right jobs and that there will be jobs for them afterwards. That certainly is happening in the mine training community.
In other areas, for instance, oil and gas, I haven't discussed that much; it's not a huge sector in the territory. However, we are seeing activity in north Yukon on oil and gas, with a view to liquefying the natural gas. There is no infrastructure in place to move it otherwise.
That's an area for training, particularly the first nations community. I know that with the project in north Yukon, they do employ first nations. They are currently negotiating an economic benefits agreement with the Vuntut first nation.
Some of that is happening. It doesn't mean we can't do more. With a population of 36,000 people, it's difficult to do everything at once. We do have to manage our growth and how we address it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Daniel. Your time is up.
We go now to Ms. Liu for up to five minutes.
NDP
Laurin Liu NDP Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for waking up very early this morning to meet with our committee. I would also like to thank my colleague Mr. Daniel for his line of questioning on communications infrastructure. That was something I was also interested in.
I'd like to go back to some issues raised by my colleague Mr. Bevington on financing. We know the Yukon is trying to focus in the long term on large-scale hydroelectric projects. In order to do so, we know the territory's power grid would have to be connected west, with Alaska, or south to British Columbia in order to sell excess power to other jurisdictions.
However, we know the costs of such an intricate tie-in would be $1.5 billion to $2 billion, which Premier Darrell Pasloski says is beyond the territory's financial capacity in the foreseeable future.
We do know, as you noted, Ms. Babcock, that the private sector will be involved and other parties will be involved. But what specifically is the federal government's role in financing?
President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce
That's a very good question; it would probably depend on who you ask. From the chamber's perspective, we're talking public infrastructure, not necessarily projects to service a specific project. There is an obligation to provide energy to the public within the territory, and that comes from our crown corporation, Yukon Energy. They have partnered with the private sector to develop some hydro lines.
There's also a huge opportunity for Canada to invest. When you consider the royalties they receive from Yukon—from the mining, the oil and gas, any other land-based activities—it's in their best interest to invest and become a full partner in this territory.
NDP
Laurin Liu NDP Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
My colleague mentioned communications infrastructure bandwidth. You mentioned ports, as well.
Are there any other infrastructure projects you didn't have a chance to talk about that you'd like to bring up now?
President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce
I know that I mentioned rail. Yukon recently renewed their cooperative agreement with the State of Alaska. For your interest, Yukon shares the longest Canada-U.S. border. It's with Alaska. It's the longest one in the country. That's a little piece of trivia for you.
We have a lot of exchange back and forth. The U.S. has actually invested in road infrastructure in the territory by maintaining the Alaska Highway. On port access, the U.S. government is investing millions of dollars in improvements to the port. A lot of that is to service the mining community in the territory.
We have other partners as well. I think we work in a day and age when it has to be public-private partnerships, and we have to look at other jurisdictions as well.
NDP
Laurin Liu NDP Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I would also be interested in knowing, Mr. Graham, the effect of the infrastructure requirements for the Mackenzie Valley highway.
Could you go into more detail about the costing and the specific infrastructure requirements?
President, Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce
I'm sorry. I don't have any costing in front of me on the Mackenzie Valley highway, and I couldn't even hazard a guess.
Again, as I mentioned earlier, all the project development reviews up and down the Mackenzie Valley for the highway to be constructed are in place. That was finalized, I believe, in January of this year. Once that's ready to go, it's then a matter of finding the money to complete a piece of nation-building infrastructure.
NDP
Laurin Liu NDP Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
We have been talking a lot about the labour market. We also know that the cost of living is a big issue in the north. The FCM, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, recently passed a resolution to raise northern residents' tax deductions.
I'll ask Ms. Babcock, first, if you have any comments about that. If we have time, I'll go to Mr. Graham.
President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce
The Yukon Chamber doesn't really have a position on that. Of course, we would welcome increasing that tax incentive for northerners, the northern living allowance. We do live in a higher cost jurisdiction. Housing's higher, food's higher, and transportation is more expensive. It's one of our challenges in attracting people to come here to live and work.