David Ramsay

With Highway No. 7, that is a capital question but I’m more than happy to respond to it. We’ve got $1 million in this year’s capital budget. Going forward we’ve used the number of $250 million would be required for the complete reconstruction of Highway No. 7, which is necessary, but we don’t have $250 million to put towards the complete reconstruction of that highway. What we do have is a plan to come forward with $3 million in capital every year for 10 years, I believe is the length of time, to put a dent in the requirements that are needed on Highway No. 7. With the advance of Prairie Creek...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we haven’t made decisions in this House on whether to move the project forward, we haven’t got the funding agreement from the federal government and the approvals from the federal government, that hasn’t happened. So, obviously, we have not made a decision on procurement for the Inuvik-Tuk highway. That will happen after we get all the approvals. When we get the decision to move forward in this House is when we will make decisions on procurement and not until then. Thank you.

That would be under the capital so, no, it’s not in this budget. Thank you.

No.

That would come from the ownership at Harry Winston and their commitment to the Northwest Territories to see diamond mining be a success here in the NWT. We’ve got every assurance from the ownership at Harry Winston that will happen. We have known them for a number of years now, having been partial owner at the Diavik Mine, and we certainly look forward to their continued involvement in diamond mining here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

It is still a relatively new system. It’s somewhere around 80 percent in terms of registered users of that toll system. We still have some to capture, but compliance has been good where we continue to move forward with toll collection.

Mr. Speaker, we will have a project soon. Hopefully sometime this week we’ll get answers back from the federal government. Our objective is to have that risk assessment, the risk matrix out for public consumption hopefully by the end of this week.

For the Member to stand up in the House and say that it’s only going to be Cabinet’s decision on this project and that we are brokering a deal, he’s making it seem like we’re doing this behind closed doors. That decision will be made on the floor of this House by Members of this Legislative Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Member for raising the concern. As far as airports go, we feel that the parking at YZF here in Yellowknife, there’s one hour free parking for anybody that wants to park in the lot. We have to remember there are drop-off areas there so people can drop folks off. There are carts for luggage. From a safety perspective, we have to keep traffic moving in that area, so we can’t have congestion in that area. The parking enforcement at the airport is that it’s meant to be a deterrent to people leaving their vehicles outside of the airport. Not everybody takes...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The main impetus on looking at relocating the Merv Hardie to Tsiigehtchic was its ice-breaking capability and the fact that it could remain in operation longer, and with the situation of gas in Inuvik, that’s very, very important. Again, decisions are going to have to be made sooner rather than later. The Merv Hardie, we didn’t look at any other location that it could move in the NWT. The traffic volumes aren’t there at other locations and, again, I think we need to keep in mind the situation in Inuvik with the gas and the fact that we can keep that crossing open for...

The agreements would stay in place with the new owners. We’re very encouraged with what Harry Winston has been discussing with us in terms of northern workforce development and also the provision of perhaps having a rough supply here in Yellowknife for local cut and polish companies to avail themselves of. It’s all very encouraging and I think we have a lot to look forward to with Harry Winston, Dominion Diamond, being involved in the diamond industry here in the Northwest Territories. That agreement the Member spoke of will go with the sale.