Michael McLeod

We expect all the steel to be coming in batches over the winter and construction should be starting in earnest on the superstructure right away. We plan to have all the material for the superstructure on site by the spring of this coming year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s good to see all the visitors here in the gallery. The Housing Minister indicated I had a constituent here and I was trying to figure out who was Ms. Mary, but I finally figured out it was Rose Vandell from Fort Providence. I’d like to welcome her here. I also want to welcome a former colleague, Tony Whitford, who’s now not a one-man army but a one-man navy…

---Laughter

…and for sure he’s a force to be reckoned with. I’d like to welcome him here today. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Member has already twisted my arm on several occasions on other issues. We have commitments to meet with the leadership over the next while. I would be glad to put this subject on the table for discussion, whether it means going into Aklavik or someplace in the Delta, or if the leadership is in town here, I would commit to meet with them on the subject and have the discussion whether it is something that is warranted. We would also, of course, have to spell out our fiscal realities and look at what the demand is for that airport. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the study that we undertook and the results that we used as a guide did not indicate that there was any demand for a larger 20-seat aircraft to go into the community of Aklavik. That is what the 2010 rule would affect. Those would be the larger planes carrying 10 to 19 passengers, such as the Beech 1900D and the Metroliner and others. Mr. Speaker, that is the reason we didn’t look at extending the airport at Aklavik. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I must have spent at least two weeks of this summer in Aklavik. The issue was not raised to me about aircraft types and runway lengths. I would be very hesitant to say I would commit to going back into the community when I was there for quite a few days over the summer.

Mr. Speaker, the current type of aircraft that is flying in there for charter or sched services is the Cessna 207. The airport meets the demands for that. There is really no demand identified for the larger type of aircraft. The medevacs are done with King Air. The airport is adequate to meet that demand. I would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 2010 rule on aircraft specifies the landing and take-off approaches that need to be addressed on a number of airports and they apply to a certain type of category. In this case, there are 74 community category aircraft. We had done a study in the last government to review the runway issues across the NWT. We use that as a basis and a guide to improve the runway lengths. A number of communities, Fort Good Hope, Tulita and Fort McPherson and in the case of Aklavik, the runway is 3,000 feet and the aircraft that is being utilized in the community meets the 2010 rule...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These projects are still currently under the department and at some point will be transferred over for project management, I’m assuming. Having said that, all these projects are required to go through a planning process. We also have standards that we’ve set in place for all our new buildings that would be focused on energy efficiency and integrate standards of where we look at alternate energy as part of a process. So there will be consideration on all those projects.

At this point it’s too early to say what the specifics would be as they’re still in the planning stage...

There are a couple things, of course, that really challenge us. One is the weather. We don’t have control over that. The other issue, of course, is the carriers are allowed to decide what schedules they want. We can relay the concern that the Member is raising, but outside of that, there’s really little we can do to change flight schedules and things of that nature. However, if there are any concerns, we can certainly pass those on to the carriers.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course it is possible. We could have that discussion.

We will incorporate the Daylight Savings Time schedule for the ferries. We have already started working on other ferry services to change the hours so that they can take advantage of the daylight that we have, and that, of course, is becoming shorter every day. We also have to take into consideration that there are safety issues. We have to be mindful of ice buildup and we have to be able to have clear visibility at all times. Those things we’ll take into consideration, we’ll talk to the community leaders in the Member’s area and also have an opportunity to connect with the Member himself...