Michael McLeod

We had planned to contact the MLAs, if we haven’t done it already, to ask them to participate and do some promotional ads on this area. We have worked with the Students Against Drunk Drivers, I believe, and some of the municipalities, and of course we are always in contact with the RCMP, the municipal workers and the different sports organizations across the Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Margaret Leishman, who is a strong proponent of the Aboriginal languages in the Deh Cho, to the House today. I also wanted to recognize a former resident of Fort Providence, Mr. Albert Canadian, who recently published a book called Leshamie. I encourage everyone to buy it. It’s good reading. I also wanted to recognize Percy Hardisty from the Deh Cho region. He’s done a lot of work with MVERB, and, of course, his wife, Betty Hardisty, who’s here to check on her little brother. So he’s on his best behaviour. Welcome...

Mr. Speaker, the assets, the contracts, all the dealings with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation were transferred to the Government of the Northwest Territories and they will now start to be part of our public accounts, that is including the long-term debt. It will also be included in our non-consolidated financial statements. There is going to be some requirements for some legislative changes to the act that will require us to now not put the revenues into a special fund, but will now go into general revenues of the government. So there are minor changes to that. That will be forthcoming as we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The contract for Ruskin was signed with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in March of 2010 with the approval of the GNWT, of course, so it would not appear in the GNWT contracts report for the 2009-2010 year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize today Mr. Patrick Chicot from Kakisa. Patrick’s here with our Pages that are working very hard for us from Kakisa and will be returning home on Friday. I will be recognizing the Pages tomorrow.

Our practice has been to utilize local contractors and generate local employment as much as we can. Construction of ice bridges and ice roads has always historically gone to private contractors. We have been looking at ways to save money or cut some of our costs and I’m not sure if this is one of the areas that may have been targeted. I will review the situation and reply to the Member directly as to what our findings are and what our plans are.

We have quite a few contracts that are signed with communities and development corporations across the Northwest Territories. I can’t say with any certainty whether the specific contract referenced is up this year. I will find out, though, and provide that information.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not aware of any changes at this point to how we’ve constructed ice bridges historically, so I’d have to look into the issue.

The Member has reinforced the fact that she’s very concerned about this erosion that’s happening on Highway No. 2. We’ve had our staff look at it. We’ve been monitoring the situation for quite a few years. We have other situations where there are sheer drop-offs. We have guardrails. We have guardrails on our bridges. At this point we want to ensure that it’s flagged. We will start looking at whether realignment is warranted.

I have not been informed by any of the experts that have looked at it that it’s needed right at this point, at this time, but it’s something that we will consider. We will...

No, I’m not an engineer so I couldn’t really tell the exact type of work that will be done. With discussion with my staff, they’ve indicated that we’d deal with the safety issue and we’d try to curb the erosion that’s happening there. As to what exactly is being planned, I’d have to commit to getting back with the details to the Member.