The request for proposals (RFP), open until mid-June, asks for a company to supply and install Nunavik’s undersea fibre-optic cable network this summer along its Hudson coast. The cable would be extended from Chisasibi in James Bay to Kuujjuarapik, Umiujaq, Inukjuak and Puvirnituq. The government has said the service could also be extended to Salluit, Quebec’s second northernmost Inuit community. Nunavik’s other communities will get surplus satellite capacity until it can extend the fibre-optic cable to all 14 of its villages, which the government hopes to do by 2025. (Nunatsiaq News)

Talking point: This phase of the project is funded by a $125-million investment from the provincial and federal governments through the Connect to Innovate program, which has pledged to invest up to $500 million until 2021 to bringing high-speed internet to rural and remote communities in Canada. In December 2016, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) declared broadband internet access as a basic telecommunications service. The CRTC has established a country-wide objective with the goal of ensuring that 90 per cent of all Canadians have access to the internet in their communities by 2021. Internet access can be especially crucial to remote communities, and the government has acknowledged its importance in providing citizens with educational resources, essential services, such as health care and mental-health support systems, and economic opportunities.