Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question this afternoon is for Mr. Menicoche, the Minister for Transportation. It regards a notification that went out about two weeks ago now, a fairly major restriction on the Kakisa River Bridge near the junction of Highways No. 1 and No. 3. Mr. Speaker, we voted just over $9 million over last year and this year to replace the bridge, but the department advised on August 3rd that a considerable restriction was being put on traffic. Truck traffic was being forced down to a five kilometre single-lane use of that bridge. According to a press release issued that...

Okay, Mr. Speaker. Thanks very much for the answer from the Minister. But my information, and I think it's been quite well noted in the media, is that the camp housing proposals that they were looking at for building the pipeline have changed from building I believe it was five major permanent or semi-permanent camps to ones that are far more mobile, smaller and less sophisticated. So that was the point of my question. Maybe we need to compare some notes on it. But regardless, we put a lot of our eggs in that Novel basket, potentially a lot of money had been talked about from this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for Mr. Handley as the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. As I referenced in my statement, this Assembly has been very busy with one of the potential outcomes of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, and that being a chance to use the Novel housing approach which is a design put forward by ATCO to potentially convert some camp housing into permanent housing in the NWT.

Thank you, colleagues, Mr. Speaker. The NWT continues to have a dramatic housing need. Of course, demonstrated by that information, it amplifies other social problems, but we face considerable constraints in solving this issue, Mr. Speaker. Developments, red hot economies all across western Canada, labour shortages increasing, materials supply costs have added pressures on how we are going to solve this problem.

So what I am looking for, Mr. Speaker, what we should all be looking for, are answers on how we are going to meet our housing needs, current and future. What are the options our...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Finally, in the area of the appeals process under this bill, we are proposing a fairly substantive change there and that is going from a panel to a sole adjudicator model. I wanted to ask the Minister of our ability or intention to ask those people who are currently serving on the appeals panel to gauge their interest in taking on the job as a sole adjudicator and, more specifically, Mr. Chairman, what kinds of training and expertise we would be offering or expecting these people to have before taking them on as sole adjudicators. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The department engaged in quite a considerable consultation process already leading up to this bill and from everything I saw, it was a pretty good process, Mr. Chairman. Will there be further consultation or attempts to see what the general public thinks should be brought in for defining family for this bereavement leave aspect? Is there going to be another round of discussions, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Speaker, is the replacement project on time and on budget? Thank you.

Okay. I guess I am just trying to understand just what is the specific nature of the damage that was discovered. Are we just reacting to things that have gone wrong in other places? I appreciate that we want to take a surplus of caution, but just what is the exact nature of the problem? Just what is it, then, that we should be really concerned for a danger to the travelling public or complete failure or closure of the bridge? I think the public deserves to know just what is going on there, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you for the update, Mr. Speaker, on the affordable housing project. One of the aspects of the Novel plan that had come under some discussion was that we would be, in effect, exporting a lot of jobs and a lot of value to factories in southern Canada that would be prefabbing this, and it caused some of us ask, well, why couldn't we create that kind of an industry here in the NWT for ourselves, knowing that housing is, of course, a perpetual need. So I'm wondering to what extent the Housing Corporation is looking at enabling the creation of a viable housing manufacturing facility here in...

But we learned a little while ago that due to changes in the project that the Mackenzie Valley pipeline people might not or it's not likely they'll be using this particular idea and it takes off our list of options, Mr. Speaker, potentially several hundred housing units that we had thought could be put into place over the next few years. So my question, Mr. Speaker, to the Premier is, does the Novel housing project remain a viable option for our housing situation in the foreseeable future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.