Abstract

This thesis examines events and policy documents between 1993 and 1998 which are pertinent to the development of the information highway in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The focal event discussed is Connecting the North, an interactive broadcast symposium held in 1994, as it represents a large-scale non-government initiated public consultation which impacted on the federal government's national policy for the information highway. Innis' theory of communications provides a theoretical framework for understanding the importance of infrastructure in determining use and format. Locally, the development of a northern information highway is an important opportunity for northern aboriginal peoples to define how they want to interact with each other, with the rest of Canada and with the world. The development of the northern information highway is discussed in terms of the concepts of self-determination and the right to communicate. Canada's north offers a rare opportunity to examine the role that telecommunications infrastructure plays in determining format, and ultimately content, as well as the role of public policy in ensuring the right to communicate for all citizens.