Finance committee  I would say the dominant language breakdown would be indigenous languages. A lot of that is delivered in the communities and in Yukon and the N.W.T., so it would be dominantly English plus indigenous languages.

Finance committee  No, I appreciated the questions and the ability to tell you a little bit about the economy of the north.

Finance committee  Thank you.

Finance committee  Certainly I could. I'll go by territory perhaps, starting with the N.W.T. The N.W.T. tourism sector is burgeoning these days. They have been very successful in expanding their marketing internationally and expanding from what had been a very strong Japanese market to the Chinese

Finance committee  I think one of the particular ways we differ is that we continue to work to build a foundational economy. We're not working with a very advanced economy; it's still foundational. We're still talking about road as an essential investment, as one of the fundamental barriers to effi

Finance committee  It's my understanding that the business case for that was submitted to different parts of the federal government a couple of years ago. It was a very expensive project. They did go ahead to prove the feasibility of the project, if I understand correctly. If I recall correctly, th

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  I do understand that the case and the proposal were submitted to the departments that could be engaged in funding it.

Finance committee  We hear a lot about roads, and my colleague Mr. Spence hears a lot about roads in the major project world as well. Again, in Yukon, all communities are connected by road, except for one. There's a desire to continuously strengthen and extend that road network. They have the Demps

Finance committee  They are in desperate need. They're expensive. Building up there is very expensive and seasonal, so they are in need of funding.

Finance committee  They would be profoundly transformative for the economy, as well as for the social health of the communities that could be connected.

Finance committee  It will shut down. My expert is here.

Finance committee  We support advancing the communications capacity of the north in a variety of ways, but first I need to be clear. In Yukon, it's fairly efficient. There's a lot of land-based fibre and so on, except for one community in Yukon. In the N.W.T., it's a bit mixed. The southern part is

Finance committee  I'm not technically knowledgeable but I do know how people use and need that kind of connectivity. Whether it be for long distance education, which is very desirable in some of the far-flung communities, for health care, or for the world I focus most on these days, which is doing

Finance committee  It was previously known as the Arctic fibre project. The Arctic fibre project has been bought out by another consortium. I think right now, this summer, they're laying cable in Alaska and beginning to build their fibre network there.