Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, indeed, we did have time to meet the grand chief and the leadership of the Tlicho region last month. It is an initial meeting and we are in agreement that we will move forward with looking at the improved access for the Tlicho region and its communities. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intent is not, of course, to restrict any access to elders or anybody else that's living off the highway system. But our policy is that we do not maintain any privately owned access roads off the highway system, and our primary responsibility is taking care of our highway system, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just with respect to the issue the Member brings forward, the access roads that run off our highway systems, including the one he's talking about on Highway No. 3, are considered now private access roads and the department does not specifically maintain access roads off the highway system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be glad to sit down with the Member and the leadership to discuss ways in which we could best address this issue. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not quite sure what the Member is getting at, if he is looking for a name or…but, typically, it is done by regional offices that makes a determination based on the condition of the road and engineering studies that we conduct periodically. That is how the highways are assessed for need for work, etcetera. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As with any highway where there are many challenges to ensure the highways are as safe as possible for the travelling public, and the Dempster Highway that the Member is referring to is one of the ones that we are focussing a lot of our capital and energy on. We are basically reconstructing that highway. Also, another one of the big challenges is the amount of dust control that we can apply to those roads. One of our biggest barriers, Mr. Speaker, is the cost of application; whereas, down south, the southern sections of our roads, we can get away with $1,500 per...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do not have any program for reimbursing people to get their driver’s licences re-issued but, once again, Mr. Speaker, we are willing to look at the community of Paulatuk to go in there and discuss their needs with them. We do not, of course, have an issuing system in all of our communities in the North, but we are planning to provide support to the outlying communities and to deal with systems that the driver examiner and our department, what is the best way we can alleviate the concerns in the communities and getting people driver’s licences so they can get to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, with the federal contribution of $400,000 and a contribution from our government, we are approaching about $1 million for the study alone. It will examine all the areas that the Member was discussing this afternoon, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely, discussing the access roads and the maintenance of it is an issue that certainly can be discussed the next time that we do meet with the Tlicho grand chief and the leadership. As well, I think the expectation is to be sometime at the end of June or towards the end of June to meet with regard to the Tlicho road studies. It is still early. We haven’t even gotten out there to do some preliminary work just to discuss the particular overland routes to be chosen, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some of the issue, too, is that we have private contractors that do maintain our roads and we do have some informal policies that can consider requests such as this, but in the past we've had objection by contractors, in particular in the Member's riding, saying the government is taking away private contracting work by opening access roads and plowing roads. So that's one of the issues. But just in general, Mr. Speaker, the access roads belong to the owner and the department is not responsible for maintaining and clearing of those roads. Mahsi.