Michael McLeod

First question, I guess the $400,000 that was approved was approved last year in the budget. The agreement to supply this was in the concession agreement. I think it would be very difficult to go back and open it up at this point.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, the Member raises an issue that has been somewhat of a challenge over the years for us as a department. We’ve looked at a number of ways that we can suppress the dust on our highways. We’ve also done the same in a lot of the communities. We’ve used different methods and products over the years, calcium, of course, being the cheapest one; however, a very limited lifespan, about one year for calcium. We’ve also used EK35 on some municipal roads and we also used it on airports. It’s a product that’s fairly cheap, but the lifespan of EK35 is somewhat limited, it...

Mr. Chairman, we would be happy to consider all possibilities as we move forward. Thank you.

We certainly can do that. Mr. Speaker, I have to point out I don’t share the Member’s concerns. The community, the job contract from the community requested to do the site preparation and they did the contract, they had that contract, they requested to do the earth works, they got the contract, they did that work, they wanted to do the gravel pit development, they requested that, they got that, and they did it, and they wanted to provide camp services, Mr. Speaker, and they are providing camp services. I wasn’t aware there was water truck involvement in here. I only know that the Municipality...

Mr. Chairman, we plan to move ahead with the realignment as planned. We have had consultation with the communities. We have talked about the areas of concern for a number of years. Two issues were raised. There is the burial grounds at the mouth of the Great Bear Lake where the ice takes a long time to form. We have planned and designed a route so that we can have the road avoid the burial grounds and so that it crosses a location where the ice is thicker and freezes sooner, so I think we have dealt with all the concerns and our plan is to go ahead as we had discussed with the community.

Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with this project. We went far above what was required to ensure that the community was involved. We gave a lot of flexibility to the community to become a partner and negotiate a contract. Six million dollars worth of work went to the partnership. We extended time frames. We facilitated discussions with subcontractors. So I think there’s been a lot of work in this area and certainly our department has been involved every step of the way. We are well aware that there are some companies, some sub-trades are not able to negotiate good arrangements.

Mr. Speaker, we...

This is an issue that I think the Member has raised every year from the time he was elected in this position. It is certainly an area that we have worked towards improving. I think that we have spent more than $5 million in a number of key improvements and along the Mackenzie Valley winter road. We have, at his request, looked at putting a number of signs along the winter road so that the traffic could be informed of corners and hills and we also overall wanted to have a stronger presence with our highway enforcement officers and highway patrols and changed our permitting system and have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The quick answer, I guess, is that most of the deficiencies have been addressed. The floor is something we are working to expedite the repairs to. The material is on order. We have a contractor that’s going to be coming to the community and we expect it all to be completed by the end of November. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think all parties involved, all stakeholders, including the municipalities, have recognized that it’s still cheaper to do an analysis of what the gravel requirements per community are for that year and provide a stockpile versus to try to find 20 to 30 million dollars to build a road. It’s still very difficult to do so. I think there is merit to look at the long term and try to work with the communities, and I’ve committed to do so. I’d like to see that move forward, but at this point there is no program and there is no budget that allows us to tap into for gravel source access...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member raised a very healthy list of projects that we are working on in the Northwest Territories with communities to find either improvement through the Access Roads Program to enhance road systems or, in some cases, to try and find a way to lessen the costs to have gravel into the communities.

We don’t, as a department, have a gravel source program per se. We have really tried to reach out and be creative in a number of situations including the Tuk source 177 program where we were able to access the Building Canada Fund and work with some communities such as...