David Ramsay

We continue to work toward a business case, and I think that’s where we’re trying to get to. This is discussed in the Airport Development Plan. It outlines what the Member is talking about today. As far as planning, a lot of that would take place under corporate services or the commercial development section of the airports division, so that money the Member talks about would be contained in those units inside the department. But, again, we have to get a business case to make something like this happen.

Dredging remains a responsibility of the federal government. I see our role as being one that continues to push the federal government to reinstate a program like they had prior to 1994 when they had a multi-million dollar dredging program here in the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned to the Member earlier, even a small-scale dredging program is going to cost somewhere between $2 million and $3 million. Full-scale, you’re looking at probably $12 million to $15 million for a full-scale dredging program. Those are capital dollars that today we just do not have, and again, it’s not currently...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as we know, the sale is moving forward. There were some legal issues earlier on but, for all intents and purposes, the sale is progressing. We have recently met with Harry Winston, soon to be Dominion Diamond Mining, and we wish them well in their pursuits in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you. The Inuvik-Tuk ice road and the road to Aklavik, together they’re about $2 million. So we’re going to save about $800,000 in putting that ice road in between Inuvik and Tuk. It’s about $800,000. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for her statement and questions today in the House. I think it’s a great opportunity, not only for Hay River but for the Northwest Territories, and if we can plug in the tourism angle, and arts and crafts, and a number of other things around the territory into that channel in promoting the Northwest Territories, I think that’s a good initiative. We’d be more than happy, at ITI, to sit down with the Member and see what support the community needs to have a staff person located there to maximize our opportunities through that channel. Thank you.

The Member is correct. We hadn’t done it for a while so there’s a bit of a shock there. We’re going to try to, as we move forward, look at it on an inflationary basis, year to year, so that there’s not a big gap of 10 years before you look at fees again. Yes, we’re doing just that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That analysis and decisions could, in fact, even happen this month. I mean, spring is coming and decisions are going to have to be made, so, yes, we’ll be moving on that as soon as we get the analysis done.

We’re going to get word back from the federal government on the approvals for the funding agreement hopefully sometime this week. Members of this House, when the project is going to be approved, will approve this project and they’ll have all the information available to them so that they can make a decision whether or not they support the project moving forward. That should happen, hopefully, very soon.

Thank you. It still is relatively new, but things are on track. We continue to collect tolls. On an annual basis it will be somewhere over $4 million. We have an annual admin cost on the tolls of about $300,000. It is an automated thing. There are pictures of the licence plates that are taken of the trucks that are crossing northbound on the Deh Cho Bridge. So the good news is that the bridge is in service, that tolls are being collected and there haven't been hiccups thus far. Thank you.

Thank you. It’s not anticipated that there will be any fee increases associated with people accessing services on-line. Thank you.