Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I had a good statement and some questions, but then I just realized that the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment wasn’t here, so I will have to save those until Friday. I was trying to come up with a topic that I have been hearing a lot about in my time in Inuvik. One of the main complaints I had from Inuvik, and people that drive it, is the condition of the Dempster Highway.

Mr. Chairman, the basis for the amendments to this legislation is to empower the communities to give them the ability to do a number of things; in this case, the transfer of unpaid charges to property taxes. We would expect that the municipality would notify the client that they are in arrears of any type of service, and I am sure that that is the practice that is in place now.

However, in a case where there are unpaid charges that may be lingering for some time, the municipality will have the ability to transfer to the individual's property taxes, and there is no real legal notification...

Yes, I would, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister. If the chipsealing is going to be a problem, we will settle for dust control. This was a terrible summer on the highway. All the way, there was absolutely no dust control, maybe 12 kilometres. So will the Minister commit to having his department do dust control on the whole 262 kilometres next summer? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for the update. Earlier this summer, I invited the Minister to go on a tour of the highway with me so he could see the condition of the highway first hand. We will get that tour done, hopefully, next summer. Will the Minister and his department look at chipsealing part of the highway as part of the master plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I spoke today on the condition of the Dempster Highway, and I have a few questions for the Minister of Transportation. With all this traffic that’s going to be going on the highway when the pipeline goes through, is there a master plan to upgrade the highway, widen it, just so it’s a lot safer for the trucks and the people who are travelling on it? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Chairman, I guess we should read it out. We offered to read it out earlier, what actually falls under that category. We could do so.

Yes, I would, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I apologize if we weren’t clear. There are three amendments we’re talking about today. The amendment referring to the unpaid charges and transferring them to property taxes applies only to municipal taxation authorities, and if you look at the three different acts or three different classifications of communities, you’ll see the wording is different. There is the opportunity. So it only applies to the municipal taxation authority. Right now there are only the tax-based communities that are part of that. This will apply to the hamlets and the charter communities once, and if...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Premier that this project is important to the valley. With all of these demands being made from all of the parties involved, is this holding up the talks with Ottawa on this resource revenue sharing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.