Aaniin Curve Lake,

Wireless connectivity is important to our pandemic recovery, future economic development and the education and quality of life of our community members. Too often we hear from our membership about dropped calls, poor signal and overall lacking connectivity to our 24/7 world.

In February of this year, we received an offer from Bell Canada to install a new cell tower to increase the quality of our cell service on-reserve. This is a welcome opportunity for the community to establish good, working relationships with these companies while providing essential connectivity to our community.

The process of approval for these kinds of projects are federally regulated and crucial steps in communication are required before any actionable decision can be made by Bell Canada or Curve Lake Chief and Council. These requirements were identified as not being as comprehensive as Curve Lake would like, so we outlined the necessity of a full community consultation process with our members.

Last week, you may have noticed some activity at the Waste Transfer Station, as Bell Canada is putting up a temporary signal boosting tower to test the viability of the project before the final agreement and proposal are presented to community. This does not circumvent the community consultation process and we apologize for any miscommunication or confusion this may have caused our members.

Our legal team is reviewing the agreement with Bell and has forwarded their recommendations back to Bell. Once this negotiation is complete and agreed upon by both parties, Bell will initiate a complete community consultation project and relay results to community and Chief & Council for consideration or approval.

Again, this project is to the benefit of our members and every possible precaution and consideration will be taken into account for health and safety, long-term planning and community safety.

We will continue to update community on the process and share information regarding these kinds of developments.