Michael McLeod

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. I will certainly take that concern and raise it with the federal government. However, I have to repeat again, CATSA does not share their security implementation plans with us as to what they're going to do with other airports. Right now the focus is on Yellowknife, as far as we know in terms of what they're going to implement for security. As traffic volumes are increased in other communities, certainly I'm sure there would be consideration. Screening devices are based on traffic volumes, so if traffic volumes are on a rise as a result of polar flights or...

Madam Chair, I don’t know if I’m in a position to qualify whether the federal requirements make sense or not. At this point I’m obligated to follow through and implement this whole explosion detection system by the deadline. We have raised this issue regarding our additional funding requirements to the federal government. We have talked to the CATSA officials over a number of months from the time this funding application was submitted in December right until this spring when it was final, and all indicators showed that the government was not going to budge on allowing us any more money to...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have been working with a stakeholder group for some time over the last while to assess the passenger terminal facility here in Yellowknife, and we had plans to look at this facility and to make assessments on the passenger terminal building and the CATSA requirements. We had talked with program staff, air carriers and CATSA technical staff. Initially we had looked at long-term plans and had confirmed that we would be looking at development on the west side of the airport, however, as I indicated earlier in my response, the notification came last...

Mr. Chairman, the Member is right; we did sign a five-year agreement with a company here in Yellowknife to provide food and beverage services, and I’m not aware of the fact that we did indicate to them that we will no longer be using a restaurant, because we haven’t made that decision yet. Right now we are in the process of doing a retail concession study along with a customer satisfaction survey, and we are doing a cost assessment as part of the request for proposals. So we have not decided at this point that we will not have a restaurant. We are more in a situation where we will be making...