Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 29/98) - NorthwesTel's request for $20 million to $30 million annually in subsidies has struck a nerve with Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen.

Referring to the large profits reported over the years, she blasted the company for asking for money from potential competitors and taxpayers.

"NorthwesTel must have become very comfortable operating as a monopoly and it's requested that Canada's telecommunication companies and even the federal government should pay into a national fund aimed at subsidizing service in Canada's high-cost regions," said Groenewegen.

"I say to NorthwesTel, 'Welcome to reality.' Most Northern businesses are built on sweat and prowess of determinate, insightful entrepreneurs. The telecommunications business should not be any different."

Northwestel announced earlier this month that it needed subsidies from the federal government to enable it continue providing local services in remote communities once it looses its monopoly on long-distance service.

NorthwesTel argues it loses money in 90 per cent of the communities it serves.

The subsidy will also help the company wire the North with high-speed data lines by 2000, which is a federally-driven initiative.

"Northern business people do not go hat in hand to the government every time there's new competition in town. Northern businesses face competition every day, locally and extra-territorially," said Groenewegen.

"If anyone deserves an operational subsidy, it would be Northern businesses who have been paying the exorbitant rates they have for many, many years. If NorthwesTel cannot maintain local services I am confident that there is someone out there who can."

NorthwesTel, 100 per cent-owned by Bell Canada, netted 12.1 million in 1996. Last year, profits dropped to $1.4 million but the company took a $8.9-million write-down on the value of its newly acquired cable-television subscriber base. Without the write-down, NorthwesTel's 1997 profits would have again topped $10 million.

"The more I analyse the (subsidy) proposal, the more apparent it is that at NorthwesTel panhandling is a mission statement, competition is a four-letter word and plunder is a everyday management too," said Groenewegen.

"I believe that the government should do NorthwesTel a favor by telling them to face up to market conditions."