Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of natural gas supply in the municipality of Norman Wells has been a concern raised by the community for quite a few years now, as far back as the 14th Assembly. It became a very serious concern as Imperial Oil had indicated during the life of the 15th Assembly that they would be shutting down their supply. After a lot of discussion, which included ourselves and the Premier of the day, the company decided that they would supply another four years. So we’re on the second year of that commitment and we’re continuing to look at the long-term solutions with the...

The investment for Highway No. 7 is in place. It’s been approved in our capital. We have roughly $6 million, or around $5.5 million, earmarked for Highway No. 7.

Highway No. 7 has some serious challenges as the type of construction that was utilized by the federal government back when it was constructed and because of the place it is in its lifecycle, it does require significant investment. We have identified five areas that have really become deteriorated. We have assigned engineers and we have assigned staff and have contract crews focused on this area of work.

In all reality, the road has to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Shale Creek is located in Nahendeh outside of Fort Simpson. The contract is being done by a combination of companies under Fort Simpson Dene Council. The contract company is called Ti K’endeh and I believe it’s a Wrigley and Fort Simpson partnership arrangement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I just answered that in my last response. I’ll respond again. The combined services building is substantially complete. We anticipate we’re going to have an official opening by sometime maybe in August. These dollars are to address some of the ongoing work and to rectify some of the deficiencies. The carry-over is required to meet our commitment. It’s not new money, it’s not additional money, it’s dollars that were identified that were not expended in last year’s budget. This is separate dollars not earmarked for the alternate energy system, it’s to complete...

Mr. Chairman, there are two questions I think being posed here. First of all on the dollars identified here for a little over $1 million as to what it would be for, the building and the site works are substantially complete for this facility. We anticipate we’re going to have an official opening sometime before the end of the summer and more than likely it would be sometime in August. However, there are some deficiencies that cause this to have a carry-over and there’s still other associated work that needs to be addressed.

This carry-over is required to meet our commitment and rectify some of...

Mr. Chairman, the Member is correct that the bulk of the dollars earmarked for investment along the Dettah access road has been carried over. We’ve been working with the development corporation out of the community, which is the economic arm of the Yellowknives Dene First Nations. I think we’ve developed a very good working relationship. They’ve done some very good quality work for us. They’re still relatively new at this type of work.

Some of the work that had been done and needed as a guideline and work that would allow us to move forward wasn’t quite done on time. The quarry work that was...

It’s not within my area of responsibility to declare emergencies within the municipalities. That falls under a different department. I can confirm to the Member that we have been actively involved with the municipality. We have people on the ground. Our assistant deputy minister was in Norman Wells yesterday. We’ve had some good discussions. Imperial Oil was also at the meeting. Enbridge Pipelines was also at the meetings. There is a lot of concern within the municipality as the Plains Midwest Canada Pipeline sprung a leak and it had impacts that affected the community. We thought those issues...

Within our government we have the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee and through that committee we’ve set up a subcommittee that involves many of the departments across our government that deal with this issue that Norman Wells is facing. The chair of that subcommittee is the regional director. He’s in contact with the community on a regular basis. We have people in attendance at all the meetings that they have. I think they had one yesterday. We had our assistant deputy minister there, along with other government representatives. As to whether they sit formally or have been...

Yes, we do have contracts that state time frames and penalties. However, we do allow for consideration if there are unforeseen circumstances. A lot these companies are local companies. A lot of them are Aboriginal companies. A lot of them are development corporations. The dollar amount that Mr. Krutko has identified is a number of highways that have been packaged up. There is work here that is part of Highway No. 7. Most of these contracts were deferred for some reason or other, usually at no fault of the contractor.

This is a project that was initiated to move away from a culvert type of arrangement to a box bridge type facility. This would provide us with longer term reliability and better drainage as a result.