The CRTC conditionally approved Thursday up to $272-million to the Government of Nunavut to build a 1,300-kilometre fibre transport connection to four remote Inuit communities in the territory.
The fibre line funded by round three of the $750-million Broadband Fund is expected to provide the requisite transport infrastructure to provide high-speed internet – with minimum speeds of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload – to over 80 essential public institutions, including six health car centres and 15 schools, early learning and community learning centres.
The government’s application was supported by several local associations and businesses. It now requires the support of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI), the designated Inuit organization responsible for ensuring the rights and responsibility set out in the Nunavut agreement are respected, the CRTC said.
“Nunavut is Canada’s largest, northernmost territory, and is one of the most remote regions in the country,” the CRTC said in its decision, adding this completes the CRTC’s selection of projects for Nunavut under the Broadband Fund’s third call for applications.
“The territory is only accessible by air or sea, with no land-based links connecting it to the rest of Canada and no roads between its 25 communities,” the decision added. “Given the challenges and the significant costs associated with bringing fibre to Nunavut, as well as the potential for the project to enable future fibre deployments in the region, the Commission views the funding requested for this project as necessary.”
Nunavut has 10 days from the date of the decision to submit a statement of work package to the CRTC to proceed with the project. Then it must submit a completed statement of work package by November 1 as well as the required support from NTI.
But in the sole dissenting opinion, CRTC Commissioner for British Columbia and Yukon Claire Anderson said the NTI approval should have come before the conditional approval this decision provides.
“NTI must be meaningfully consulted prior to the approval of this application in accordance with their constitutional rights and their rights under the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the UN Declaration),” Anderson said. “Any time we look at whether our decisions advance reconciliation, we must consider the concerns and interests of Indigenous representatives, which was not fully contemplated by the majority in this decision.
“I would further caution my colleagues to note that, while the CRTC has taken steps to advance reconciliation on specific issues or files, the duty to consult exists on all decisions the CRTC makes, and that we cannot rely on Indigenous-specific processes to meet our commitments to reconciliation and our legal obligations,” she added.
Photo of the legislative building of Nunavut via Wikimedia
