Michael Miltenberger

Thank you. Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The issue of buying in US dollars anything of significance, both gentlemen at the table here have a combined experience of over 50 years, and this is the first situation of this nature that either one, with that extensive experience, has experienced or been involved in. I have much less experience in the finance field but could add a few years to that as well.

As the deputy minister indicated, we are taking the steps with one of the institutions and a facility to be ready, should that need arise, and we’re going to, of course, be prepared, and this has now been...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The whole practice of hedging is a separate, highly volatile profession of its own, and if we could, with any certainty, know which way things were going to go as hedgers, as has been pointed out, I’d probably be sitting in lavish luxury somewhere in maybe another locale. Be that as it may, we don’t normally buy a lot of things in US funds and, no, we did not hedge, buy any dollars to hedge on this. Yes, we are looking at how we could possibly ameliorate that impact. But I would also point out that earlier in this process we came before the Legislature and we moved some...

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We anticipate that this would be a request for proposals, that there are, we believe, eminently qualified and capable northern businesses that would be very, very interested in a contract like this, and we would anticipate, and we would make sure it’s in the contract that, of course, northern pilots be checked out on these planes that are there. There are existing airline companies up here clearly that have the size and ability, could look and manage the hangar space or provide for that. So we anticipate that there is every reason to believe that there would be a...

I move we report progress.

---Carried

I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

We will pull something together that will capture that as per the Member’s request.

I just want to point out that in my mind the final mile piece has always been where the business opportunity is and we would be there to provide support as opposed to going to communities and getting potentially into the telecommunication business. So between the providers that are there, the ISPs, the communities with us playing a support role, we want to make sure that final mile gets implemented. But we will, on that basis, pull together the information for the Member in the life of this Assembly. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve put this document forward for consultation and we’ve extended the consultation period to, I believe, October 19th, at which time we will put it in a box, basically, and we’ll include it with the transition document for consideration in the 18th Assembly, which will include all the feedback we get.

This document is basically post-devolution. The Northwest Territories has taken over the Protected Areas Strategy and has rebranded it and packaged it and is putting is out as a Northern Conservation Action Plan. There is a process that we’re going to continue on with from the...

One of the partners in the partnership that is putting this line in is going to run a managers course with NorthwestTel and they have all the expertise. It would be a logical assumption to assume that in their business case they would be interested not only in putting the line down the valley but where they already have a presence in communities where there is going to be now access to cutting-edge fibre optic connections, they would be there looking to, I would assume, upgrade all of the communities. They have already upgraded them to satellite; most of them have cell phone connections. This...