Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as far as we know, Yellowknife is the only place that is being required to install these facilities. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, as of the January deadline that was imposed on us, there will be five levels of explosive detective systems in place at 87 different airports across Canada. Yellowknife has been rated at the highest level. Because of its high volume of passengers and check baggage traffic, our traffic volumes are a lot higher than Whitehorse, as well as Iqaluit. Consequently, we are rated at the highest level for EDS/HBS deployment. The equipment is going to be operated and supplied by CATSA. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, I would like to announce to the House that I have proclaimed today, Tuesday, October 26, 2004, as National Students Against Impaired Driving Day.

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This will be the sixth annual National Students Against Impaired Driving Day in which student organizations at more than 400 schools from every province and territory will participate. This national day of action aims to raise awareness of, and to prevent, impaired driving. In making this proclamation, the Government of the Northwest Territories conveys its support for community-minded youth groups that want...

Madam Chair, if the planes are coming from a southern destination, then they would have a security check there. However, there may be a concern, as the Member raises, as to the flights going from the North to the South. At this point I don't have an answer for that.

Madam Chair, the explosion detective systems and the whole bag of systems is going to be located at Yellowknife. That decision was made by the federal government and the intention is to target transfer traffic that is going from other northern airports, such as Inuvik, Norman Wells, and Rankin Inlet and other northern locations, that is passing through and bound for southern destinations. The Member is asking for details of the assessments made by the federal government. I don’t have that at my disposal, Madam Chair, and I don’t know if I would be able to provide it. Thank you.

Madam Chair, that’s a question that the conditions and process for that are a little different. Through the requirements for increased traffic volume in a lot of different airports, we’ve already done a number of projects through this program called the Airport Capital Assistance Program. We’ve dealt with a number of the issues relating to increased traffic volumes. We’ve invested some money in the Inuvik Airport and also done some work targeting Norman Wells. We’ve also accessed several projects at the Yellowknife Airport over the years. However, in this case we haven’t been able to apply...

Mr. Chairman, I certainly agree with the Member’s comments. That was our intention. We did in fact negotiate, as I indicated yesterday, very aggressively to have the federal government pick up the costs. We had initially brought forward the scoping and project costs and insisted that the government look at covering all the expenditures required. However, we were unsuccessful. There was displacement of aircraft parking on the air side, there was space used up in the terminal building that the federal government would not cover. Having looked at this, we had the option of going and taking only...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the airport plan is in its final phase of coming towards completion. Be expected to have a completed document for review right shortly. We are planning to still do a number of things: to consult with the city, for example, and also other carriers and stakeholders of intentions. We still will be moving forward. It was our intention to look at relocating the facility to the west side of the airport. That initiative would cost $50 million. It was part of our long-term plan. It is not something that we can realistically expect to do in this case. We looked...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, as directed by Cabinet, the department is currently working on a decision paper for cost recovery. We’re targeting the end of November to bring that forward. The number that we’re targeting to recover is $6.6 million, as the Minister indicated, over 10 years. At the present time there are already fees, as has been indicated. However, these two fees that are being collected now, the terminal fees and the landing fees, are well below the rates in southern Canada. Those are the areas we’re looking at with the possibility of airport improvement fees. So we have...

Mr. Chairman, I don't have the proof that the Member is asking for in terms of documents, so I would have to commit to providing that at a later time.