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KRG and co-ops duke it out over Internet access

Inuit vs. Inuit: a business war breaks out in Nunavik

JANE GEORGE

KUUJJUAQ — This week Johnny Adams, the chairman of the Kativik Regional Government, went on local radio to explain why the KRG’s approach to providing Internet services in Nunavik is better than what the region’s co-operative federation has proposed.

The KRG and La Fédération des coopératives du Nouveau-Québec each want to bring Internet access services to Nunavik. Both say they’ll create jobs, and both admit they’ll need government money.

But the FCNQ claims the regional government is competing unfairly to become Nunavik’s Internet service provider because it’s already getting provincial money to start up a telecommunications network.

"Although the co-ops have asked for government assistance, we now find ourselves in unfair competition with the KRG because the government of Quebec has subsidized their Internet service with an initial $350,000 in January 2001 for their pilot project in Kuujjuaq, and a further $550,000 [in November 2001]," says a letter sent by FCNQ president Paulussie Kasudluak to Guy Chevrette, who was Quebec’s minister of native affairs until this week.

Last summer, the KRG decided to go ahead and buy satellite dishes for every community in Nunavik. Some of the money it recently received will go toward this purchase.

Kasudluak sent this letter on Jan. 15, shortly after the FCNQ learned Quebec was giving the KRG more money for the satellite dishes.

The FCNQ board was enraged because it had already announced its own plans to start offering Internet services to Nunavik on its cable television network.

The KRG wants to create a satellite telecommunications network that could provide Nunavik communities with Internet and videoconferencing and perhaps even cellular phone service. Since June, the KRG has tested the wireless technology it favours in a pilot project in Kuujjuaq.

The KRG intends to provide similar telecommunications as a non-profit public service everywhere in Nunavik.

The FCNQ will start providing Internet service to Puvirnituq and Salluit this winter, and to Inukjuak by the spring, using its cable television connection to offer the service.

"This development strategy adds value to the cable networks in plan and builds on the investment made in those networks," writes Kasudluak.

The FCNQ says its Internet service should break even within four years in those communities if it receives support from residents, business and government agencies. However, in the remaining communities — excluding Kuujjuaq — the FCNQ says it will require government assistance to cover start-up costs.

Kasudluak says the co-op needs to be the sole Internet service provider to survive, which won’t be the case if the KRG sets up its network and offers it to all major organizations in Nunavik.

"This unfair competition arises from the government of Quebec subsidizing a competing Internet service by another level of government, the Kativik Regional Government," says Kasudluak’s letter.

KRG leaders defends their plan by saying their satellite system is "tried and true," more versatile and more powerful than the FCNQ’s cable system.

The KRG maintains the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement and the Kativik Act grant it the power to regulate telecommunications in Nunavik.

"We’ve been trying to do this for years," said Gordon Cobain, who has been co-ordinating the Internet project for the KRG.

Cobain says there’s no money to be made in the ISP business in Nunavik. The advantage of the KRG providing Internet service as an essential service is that it wouldn’t go belly-up.

"When it’s up and running, it will stay up and running. There is no system in Nunavik, which can be a profit-making venture. We’ll need government support," Cobain said.

Both parties have been asking for money from Industry Canada and Aboriginal Business Canada, but the federal government has asked the KRG and FCNQ for technical assessments and business plans before committing money to either venture.

The KRG has also prepared a study on the region’s telecommunications needs.

Government officials have urged the two warring parties to work together, but, so far, efforts to bring the KRG and FCNQ closer together have failed.

"While they’re fighting, we’re suffering, because we still don’t have Internet service," said one Nunavik resident.

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