David Ramsay

We have a contingency. We don’t get into any project with the belief that it’s going to go over budget, so for the Member to ask questions about the what ifs, what if you go over budget, that is a hypothetical question.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The maintenance on the Deh Cho Bridge is own forces and we’ve had to adjust the maintenance in the Fort Providence area to account for the Deh Cho Bridge. In terms of additional costs, you’ll see in the budget there’s $259,000 in additional costs to maintain and operate the Deh Cho Bridge. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In response to Member Dolynny’s question about on-line services, we hope to have abstracts available on-line hopefully in the spring of this year. We also look forward to having on-line vehicle registration sometime in ‘13-14. Also, on-line services, client notifications, registrations expiring and things of that nature, booking road tests, and that should happen, as well, this year. So we’re making a great deal of progress in the provision of on-line services here in the territory, and I thank the Members for bringing their concerns to the department’s attention. Thank...

The briefing to the standing committee was a confidential briefing because we haven’t got the formal approvals from the federal government. There is a reason the briefing was confidential. We’re hoping to get the approvals in quick order so that we can make some decisions so that Members can ask some questions. Right now, the questions the Member is asking are hypothetical.

We’re complying with regulations that are in place and currently there would be no airports that didn’t meet them. We’re almost finished the SMS. There would be no airports that didn’t meet the requirements.

The Cardinal would, if the Merv Hardie ends up at Tsiigehtchic, be used in a spare capacity. As things progress in other places around the territory, the Cardinal could be put into service – across the Bear River, for example – at some point in time. So we wouldn’t be in a real rush to dispose of that ferry.

I believe it was the same Member who was critical of the $12 million spent to date trying to plan the highway, employing local knowledge, getting that work done on the geotechnical side to ensure that best practices are followed, that we know where the granular sources are so that we can build the best road that we possibly can in that environment.

Thank you and I apologize to the Member in not giving her a time in response to her previous question, but when the approvals come in and we get the nod from the federal government, things will move quickly. We’re hopeful that even by perhaps Friday we could be in front of standing committee. If we are going to make something happen in the Beaufort-Delta, things are going to have to progress quickly in order to make that happen. So it could be as early as this week, in response to the Member’s previous question.

On the Mackenzie Valley winter road, and again that’s capital, but I’ll touch on...

Madam Chair, this is a situation that we would be more than happy to look into. I’m under the understanding that that may not be the case, but if the Member has a specific case where in each province during transit of purchasing a vehicle they had to get a new in transit from each province they pass through, again, that is something… We will look into it. It shouldn’t happen. If it is happening, we’ll try to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anybody else. Thank you.

As I mentioned to MLA Nadli earlier, we continue to analyze this decision. We have to make sure that we know what the full implications are of that decision, and of course, the Government of the Yukon has appealed. We are following this along as it happens, and we need to pay very close attention to decisions that are made in the Yukon and how they may impact us here in the NWT.