National Defence committee  I'll be quick. As a former mayor and the former president of the Nunavut Association of Municipalities, I can say that the energy infrastructure is actually a territorial Crown corporation. The telecommunications can and should actually be owned and run by Nunavut Inuit. Right

National Defence committee  Phase one, between Happy Valley and Goose Bay, is about $130 million. The entire network all the way to Inuvik is just under a billion dollars.

National Defence committee  Absolutely, there is an opportunity. We've costed out the SednaLink through various phases. It could go from Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Iqaluit and up along the east coast of Baffin Island, connecting the communities. It could connect Nanisivik and the mines. It could connect int

National Defence committee  I think it's important to understand that, in Canada's north, especially in Nunavut, we have a highly transient bureaucracy, and this is also why indigenous organizations and indigenous leaders are really pushing to see more indigenous participation in these projects and get thes

National Defence committee  We desperately need to have proper infrastructure investment strategies. There is a telecommunications strategy that Canada produced, but I've learned the distinction between what is a political strategy versus what we in the business sector recognize as a business strategy. A b

National Defence committee  We're really behind the eight ball on that.

National Defence committee  Recently, we're starting to hear Government of Canada departments recognize the value of dual-purpose infrastructure. I think the military gets it the best, but I can tell you that departments like Environment and Climate Change, ISED and Indigenous Services seem to not understan

National Defence committee  First of all, I want to speak to the fact that a lot of the infrastructure does need to be integrated. In order to be able to build out telecommunications, you need energy. In order to have energy, you need transportation. Often the communities, the mines and the defence sector a

National Defence committee  It's important to understand that we're seeing worldwide, including in southern Canada, telecommunications advancing in leaps and bounds, while in the north we're back to the highest level of speeds pre-Starlink, which is now starting to come in. Through our major ISP, it is 15 m

National Defence committee  We have actually done a SMART cable feasibility study. Jim McFarlane, Jr., son of the famous James McFarlane, Sr., who created International Submarine Engineering Ltd., has been engaging on my behalf with the defence sector, environmental groups and the industry to basically bett

National Defence committee  Exactly. That's why it is really important that the defence sectors and the Canadian security agencies be consulted. Cybersecurity risks are always an issue, whether it's with satellite or fibre; however, fibre is generally understood to be significantly more secure. That's why w

National Defence committee  You did hear correctly. ISED's universal broadband fund does not support telecommunications redundancy, including in northern remote Canada, which is extremely concerning and problematic. When Telesat effectively goes down due to weather issues or because of fibre optic lines in

National Defence committee  We had some consultations and information sessions done by NRC when I was mayor for the City of Iqaluit as well as president of the Nunavut Association of Municipalities. What I can tell you is that the mayors and the community members were at least open and receptive to learning

National Defence committee  Nasittuq, which is a partnership with ATCO, has secured a NORAD contract. There's also work under way to identify NORAD modernization infrastructure opportunities. Telecommunications and the SMART cable are, without a doubt, something that Nasittuq is fully aware of, and the abil

National Defence committee  We know that telecommunications are absolutely vital in being able to provide the necessary communications that the military and our communities require. The SMART cable component, which has sensors on the cable, would be able to, as I said earlier, collect the baseline data, as