David Ramsay

That will have to be balanced with the other urgent demands for the highway further down from the community of Fort Liard. We certainly hope to find a balance to find the money to get the chipsealing done.

Reconstruction of that highway is a major concern for us. I’ve mentioned it before. It will probably require upwards of $200 million to completely reconstruct the highway. We need to reconstruct portions of that highway that are in desperate need of it. That should be where the capital dollars go first.

On a project this size, it is inevitable that, up front, you have to do that type of geotechnical analysis, and the work, the engineering has to get done to get you the cost estimates that you require. That is what we see. That is what we’ve been pursuing.

Like any other project, it requires an environmental assessment. That’s a requirement of the federal government before we can enter into a funding arrangement with the federal government. These are necessary steps that the Government of the Northwest Territories is following and we will be making a decision, based on those cost estimates...

Again, I have made the commitment in the past. There will be additional funding for Highway No. 7. I certainly look forward to that as the process moves along. We’ll hear more about that at a later date.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No. It is in our best interest, as well, to see the completion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, and it is going to start with the section between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. Certainly, there are other demands around the territory when it comes to transportation infrastructure that we’ll be hearing loud and clear from… I know I’ve heard from the Member for the Sahtu in his conversations with the leadership in the Sahtu about the advancement of the Mackenzie Valley Highway through the Sahtu, and south from Norman Wells or north from Wrigley or however you want to call it...

The money is coming from the GNWT Giant Mine Liability Fund, which was established in 2005. There was $17 million in that budget for the realignment and it’s expected that the project costs will come in under that figure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, construction has started on the realignment of Highway No. 4 past Giant Mine. The work is being performed by Det’on Cho Corporation. They are in partnership with a number of local companies they have brought in to partner with them on the realignment project. Det’on Cho/Stantec, Det’on Cho/Nahanni Construction, Aboriginal Engineering, CJ Construction, Tli Cho Landtran, and also NWT Construction. They have a number of partners.

The project came within budget. The negotiations were concluded in early October. Construction is anticipated to carry on until close to...

Mr. Speaker, what puts this project in that special light is the fact that Canada is one of the only countries in the circumpolar world that doesn’t have road access to the Arctic Ocean. Certainly, that is something that the federal government felt, from a security and a sovereignty standpoint, was something that they wanted to see happen.

We will have a road network in this country that will go from coast to coast to coast, finally, with the construction of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway. It is a project that the federal government deems of having national significance. It is a partnership...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We were just before the House earlier this session with the Department of Transportation’s capital plan. On highways it was just over $23 million.

Mr. Speaker, we do have some funding. We have the Tourism 2015 plan that focuses on six investment components, marketing and Aboriginal tourism and community industry engagement. Certainly, we need to be working with entrepreneurs in the regions and the communities.

As I mentioned numerous times in the House, tourism provides the greatest opportunity in all of our communities to bring some real economic benefit to the communities. We have to find folks in the communities that are willing to take those risks and get involved in business. Certainly, if they are willing to do that, we have...

Mr. Speaker, we currently have $225,000 available under the initiatives that I spoke of earlier. Certainly, as we move forward, I am committed to seeing us work with the fishermen on Great Slave Lake to realize the potential of that resource for our territory. Thank you.