Glen Vienneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jun 19/00) - For some, a lifeline is the connection between people. To residents of the North that connection can be as simple as a telephone.

Gjoa Haven minister Ken Sweigard brought that message to the NWT capital last week, staging a one-man protest outside NorthwesTel offices.

"Evil prospers when good men do nothing," said the minister for Arctic Missions Outreach.

He stopped in Yellowknife on Monday and Tuesday, on his way back to Gjoa Haven from an eight-day ministry in Wales. Sweigard has served the Nunavut community since December.

His protest was on behalf the late Joanne Aquptanguak of Gjoa Haven, whose phone was cut off, he said, because she couldn't pay the high rates.

According to Sweigard, this happened at the same time as her daughter's newborn baby was going through open heart surgery in the south.

"To me, it was a terrible injustice," he said.

"NorthwesTel has to know there has to be some room for compassion for some of these poor people, some who don't even have food to eat."

Rates too high

Being a Christian, he then decided to make $50 monthly payments on the family's outstanding bill.

"That's why I'm here today, trying to get justice for the people who are paying such high rates," said Sweigard.

He is also upset with the telephone rates in the North.

His wife, still living at their home in Grande Prairie, Alta., pays a monthly $20 long- distance package.

With this package, she may call him or anyone in the country, free after 6 p.m. and on weekends, to a maximum of 600 minutes.

"Up here they don't consider that. They let me have 15 cents a minute after three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon 'till eight o'clock Sunday morning," he said.

"That, to me, is not anything near like what they are giving in other parts of Canada."

It is the lack of competition that disturbs him and he wants government to get involved.

The protest coincided with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's public hearing on a NorthwesTel plan for introducing long-distance competition in the North.

"NorthwesTel has a monopoly, they have control over the communications system," he said.

"And they're doing a fantastic job, but there charging too much for their services."

In its proposal to the CRTC, NorthwesTel has asked for a $35-million annual subsidy as part of allowing long-distance competition in the North. (See separate story in Business section.)