Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for appearing today and answering our questions on some very important topics.
My interest is predominantly in the provision of rural broadband. The region I represent in northwestern B.C. is a vast rural region. Many of the communities are extremely small and spread out and they struggle with connectivity.
I'd like to start with some questions for our delegation from Telesat.
Ms. Beck, your company was the focus of some attention in northwestern B.C. last year starting in August because a number of residents of the small rural community of Tlell on Haida Gwaii got a notice from their Internet service provider saying that their satellite Internet service was going to be ending in December. These residents had no alternatives. They had no ADSL. They had no fibre. They relied exclusively on satellite Internet.
Fortunately, after a lot of advocacy, there was an agreement struck to extend the use of your geostationary satellite with the Internet service provider Xplornet.
I wonder if you could describe that agreement for us and provide some assurance that your satellite, which we were led to believe is nearing the end of its useful life, and that agreement will get the residents of Tlell through until they have a more dependable option for rural Internet provision.