It isn’t official yet but the feeling is “positive” that the Northern Ontario Heritage Funding Corp. will approve a $1.75-million loan to provide a cellular phone corridor from Thunder Bay to Rainy River, and as far north as Morson and Nestor Falls.
Vic Prokopchuk of Sapawe, who’s been working with the cellular phone consortium which tentatively calls itself Northwest Cellular, said they made a business proposal to the Heritage Fund board last Thursday and is expecting an answer from Northern Development and Mines minister Chris Hodgson (who also chairs the NOHFC) in the “very near future.”
“I expect the announcement to be positive but until it happens I can’t stick my neck out,” Prokopchuk said.
But he also said the consortium believes they have put a good proposal together, and felt quite confident it was a project the province would want to support.
“We made the first-stage application about a year ago and the province was intrigued with the idea, and they asked us for the stage-two submissions,” Prokopchuk said.
“We have complied with all that,” he added. “So now the full board deals with it. I think now we’re in position to receive a favourable reply.”
If the application is approved, then it will be time for the other consortium members to ante up. Fort Frances and Atikokan must come up with a debenture of $1 million and $500,000 respectively, with Thunder Bay Mobility putting up $1.5 million of its own money to order the equipment and lease the towers, making it a $4.75-million project altogether.
“We have to have a cell site operational in Fort Frances by June and the one in Atikokan shortly after that,” Prokopchuk said. “Then we’ll fill in the rest of the route from Rainy River until it joins in with the Thunder Bay cell sites.”
The consortium board meets again next Wednesday, when Prokopchuk said they’ll likely have the official name and company formed. And with a little bit of luck, they also will have the heritage funding in place by then.
“But that would have to come from the minister,” he stressed. “I wouldn’t want to steal his prerogative.”
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