Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the quick answer is all of the above. I am responsible, as the Minister of Transportation, for the airport development plan; I’m responsible, as the Minister of MACA, to deal with the city on the bypass road, there’s no legislative requirement. There’s an interest that makes good sense, we want to talk to them, we want to be able to include it in our plans. We are planning to do an assessment of the costs. We are planning to work out who would pay for it. We are starting to look at the needs in terms of engineering. We are working with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have indicated before, I have not seen a formal application from the Yellowknives Dene. However, we have had discussion as to the area that we have granted permission to access. It does not conflict with the airport development plan or the Kam Lake access road the city has been discussing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. This is a response to a request to do some geotechnical and survey work in the area, some soil sampling. This was not really an issue that arose from the negotiating table. It is not part of the negotiating process. It was something that came to me, as the Minister of MACA, as a result of this land being Commissioner’s land. It is in my authority to grant access. That request came forward. It was not a request for a lease or to purchase the property. So we thought it was in our best interest to work with the Yellowknives Dene...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, we are at the negotiating tables with a number of different aboriginal governments, but our role is to provide technical support and technical information to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Following the discussions with aboriginal groups -- the negotiations -- interim measures agreements have been signed in a number of areas where there are unsettled claims. We are bound in the area of land applications to follow this process. That is the extent of our role to provide mostly support and also...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our implementation team has been meeting very regularly. They have done a lot of work. We are very confident that we are going to meet all of our target dates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a concern, of course, of Municipal and Community Affairs. We’ve had numbers of complaints. We have an issue in the town of Tulita where the trucks go right through the centre of the community and we have looked at our legislation. At this point there is no current legislation requiring us to have a bypass road. We’d like to have bypass roads in the communities where there are hazardous materials transported. There is no requirement even through the Emergency Measures Act. However, there is a requirement to conduct a risk assessment and develop a response...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Minister. Would the Minister, now that they have decided to build a new school, commit to consulting with the special interest groups in Inuvik, such as day care, to see if their needs can be incorporated into a new school?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is no legislative requirement to route a special bypass road for hazardous material at this point. It makes good planning sense, I would assume. The responsibility would fall in the hands of the municipality. If that was the desire of the community to put in a special bypass road to re-route hazardous material, the municipality would have to pay for it. Thank you.

I, too, Mr. Speaker, would like to recognize Mr. Tom Williams who is a former classmate of mine back in SAMS in 1971, I believe. Thank you.

---Laughter

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if the City of Yellowknife agrees, the Yellowknives Dene agrees, and if it fits within the Department of Transportation’s plan overall, I certainly would support it. We have a lot of work to do yet on this issue. We have to have a lot of discussion. We have to develop a process where everybody is satisfied that their interests are being taken care of and that’s what my focus is right now. We’re nowhere near approving anybody’s applications. There are a number of applications out there that we have to deal with. At this point we have granted permission to...