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September
14 , 2001
Who will connect Nunavik?
FCNQ, KRG duke it
out over ISP business
JANE GEORGE
Nunatsiaq News
Since
July, this giant rooftop dish has been putting Kuujjuaq on line.
(PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)
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KUUJJUAQ — The struggle for control of Nunavik’s underdeveloped
telecommunications market is intensifying.
The Kativik Regional Government and Nunavik’s cooperative
network, la Fédération des coopératives du
Nouveau-Québec, are at odds over who should connect Nunavik
to the Internet and what kind technology should be used.
"It’s messy, very messy," said an observer who
did not want to be identified. "It doesn’t bode well
for collaboration in the region."
The KRG asserts that it has the power to regulate telecommunications
in Nunavik under the James Bay land claim agreement and the Kativik
Act.
But Nunavik’s co-op organization says the KRG shouldn’t
offer services that the private sector can provide.
The FCNQ wants to outfit its co-op-run cable television systems
as Internet service providers, by using the existing cable system
to wire subscribers to the Internet.
The FCNQ plans to start up its Internet service in Inukjuak,
Puvirnituq and Salluit over the next few weeks, offering access
to organizations and individual subscribers.
"We have local people who work in the communities,"
FCNQ president Paulusi Kasudluak said. "Nobody is going to
stop us."
Kasudluak said the FCNQ is open to working with the KRG on Internet
delivery in Nunavik.
But the KRG wants to see a new wireless telecommunications network
that would be run by the regional government or an Internet service
provider — possibly a new subsidiary of the Makivik Corporation.
It’s has already connected Kuujjuaq, and has bought enough
satellite dishes to outfit all communities in Nunavik.
Both parties are asking for money from Industry Canada and Aboriginal
Business Canada to get their competing services up and running,
but the federal government wants to see cost-benefit analyses
of the two options before committing money.
Government officials are urging the two parties to work together,
but, so far, efforts to bring the KRG and FCNQ closer together
have failed.
Some now fear that the unresolved conflict between the KRG and
FCNQ could trigger a full-scale political dispute between Quebec
and Canada.
That’s because the Quebec government gave the KRG seed money
to get its wireless network up in Kuujjuaq.
If the federal government doesn’t support the KRG’s
larger plan to bring its system to the rest of Nunavik, Quebec
may provide the necessary cash to gain favour within the region.
Taqramiut Nipingat Inc.’s Nunavik Net company went belly-up
in 1998 after only a few months, while another plan to connect
Nunavik through Quebec’s high-speed health and social services
network flopped due to concerns over confidentiality.
Meanwhile, Nunavik’s Katujinit Economic Development Corporation
is spearheading a plan to create a Web site for the region, on
the assumption that Internet access is on its way.
Called Nunavik.ca, this would be a multilingual, multi-purpose
site, with information on Nunavik’s organizations, businesses
and products, connecting them to each other and with the South.
The $400,000 project would be paid for by participating organizations
and through Nunavik’s $1.7 million share of a $50-million
provincial fund designed to support economic diversification.
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