Alfred Moses

As I mentioned, these elders had a lot of passion and a lot of concern, and almost every elder spoke up. It was their venue to speak and be listened to. Each community brought priorities forward, some with similar themes. As I mentioned, home care, suicide, what kinds of services are provided in the community, and also elder abuse was a big one. It provided great guidelines for other regions to follow, and I think that’s something that we need to promote in other regions throughout the Northwest Territories.

Our elders are our caregivers, providers, and keepers of knowledge. It’s time that we...

I don’t think we should be waiting for an opportunity to have those discussions. I think that we’ve got a highway that we’re putting millions, hundreds of millions of dollars into and you want to give people, when they start seeing that, they want to come up and go to the Arctic Ocean and I think as Minister and leader for infrastructure of highways we shouldn’t wait for an opportunity, we should take the initiative and start those discussions. If we’re going to be opening up coast to coast to coast, people are going to have to drive through the Yukon to get up to Tuk and that should be a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One practice of this government every year is that we approve infrastructure budgets. When we approve these infrastructure budgets, one thing we have to understand is we are not approving these budgets but creating jobs throughout the North, we are helping build skills and creating opportunities for our residents, our local residents and people in the small communities.

One of those projects that was recently approved and brought to attention – even in the media and in this House over the last few weeks – is the Inuvik-Tuk Highway. When this government approves big...

Thank you. Just continuing on with that, I see there is a lot of highways mobile equipment that’s being purchased this year and when you look at the substantiation sheet there in a few places here, I see Fort McPherson is getting a loader. I was just kind of wondering, because over the wintertime and due to the weather, sometimes that section of highway gets closed for the amount of days and lack of equipment sometimes results in prolonged closures of the road and not being able to open it a lot sooner and you get a lot of people stuck in either Eagle Plains or trying to go back and you look...

With that work that they’re doing with DND, is a report expected to come to the House or whether or not the GNWT would have to cover any costs that might be associated with it, federal, like a joint partnership? I know we are doing a lot of, I guess, sovereignty work and a lot of exercises. We had a big exercise this year with the military, and I’m just wondering if the GNWT would also be committing any type of infrastructure dollars to that and if the report will be coming to this House as well.

Just on page 82 and talking about the airports, I know it is on the list and it’s something that I’ve brought up during general comments when we got started with the infrastructure process. I just wanted to ask the Minister, when do we expect to have an update on the work that’s being done for the runway, the survey work and all that information? When can we expect to get a report on that and make a decision? Also, just with the airport, as well, I know it is on the books to be replaced, the airport facility, and I’m just wondering what the plans are for that as well.

I guess, in the interim, while the building is getting constructed, is there anything being done to the current building in terms of the foundation problems as well as the insulation that’s probably resulting, as I said, in high utility costs, and is there also a safety issue with the foundation? If there are foundation problems, is there a safety issue for the people working in the building?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see a couple of things here with the shop replacements. I guess focusing first on the Inuvik shop replacement and just going through the substantiation sheet here. I guess the first question would be: When is the expected construction and ready for move in for the groups that would be moving into the new building?

The Minister made mention of chipsealing the highway there, and you know and I know, coming into the Legislative Assembly the road that has just been fixed over out on the highway here. They chipsealed that this summer and there are already some issues of potholes and those kinds of things. It’s going to be recurring in terms of having to do work and more work on it.

In some of the more significant areas on that access road from the airport to Inuvik, can that work be more permanent in terms of a paving project rather than chipsealing where we’re going to have to continue to do that maintenance...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Transportation today. It’s regarding our airport road in Inuvik. Any Member that has driven that road or has done any visits to Inuvik over the summer – it’s not even recently but just throughout the summer – knows how bad a situation that road is in.

I’d like to ask the Minister, what is the plan for paving that road or fixing that road from our airport in Inuvik to the community of Inuvik? What is our short-term and long-term plan for that road?