Michael McLeod

Mr. Speaker, as of now, the request for a camera at the ferry crossing has been something we were considering. We don’t have it built into our budget yet, but we certainly can take a look at it.

Yes, we continue to look at ways to expand our information collection through the intelligent systems that we have. If the Member had driven in, I am not sure if she drove into Yellowknife yesterday, but as she turned onto Highway No. 3, her vehicle would have been weighed, her speed recorded and the classification all documented. We have cameras on Highway No. 3. We have two cameras set up in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member raises an important safety concern that we have on all our highways, especially the highways that have chipseal. We have been looking at a number of ways to try to deal with this issue, and then try to raise the awareness through the public and the people on the highway system during the times when we have challenges. We’ve incorporated a maintenance schedule that would allow us to have staff on the highway system seven days a week so that they can closely monitor, especially during the winter months, the events that are happening.

We’ve also brought on stream...

Mr. Speaker, I had indicated earlier that I would be pleased to talk to the people of the Sahtu as to their desire to see if there is any way to upgrading this road or provide provisions that would allow us to look at what we can do or at least look at the options. This is a 14-kilometre road. I am not sure if I have as much free time as the Member to walk a whole 14 kilometres. I have committed that I would look at the situation. I would be pleased to look at the portion of road that he is referring to and try to do a visit and maybe at the time when he is walking, we can coordinate our...

Mr. Speaker, this section of road is in a very remote portion of the NWT. The use of this stretch of road is very limited. In fact, we don’t have any enforcement of this portion of highway. As of yet, we have not had the opportunity to talk about any improvements. Our indications earlier on were that the people of the Sahtu were not completely in support of upgrading this road as they felt it was going to increase traffic as a result. So we need to have that discussion. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it’s our goal to see chipseal applied to most of our roads, if not all of them, for the long term. As of yet, we haven’t been able to really prove that it will stay in sandy conditions such as the Fort Liard area. We know some work was done on the B.C. side. We’re going to take a look at that and see if we can do some test areas over the next while. We’d also like to do chipsealing on Highway No. 8 and other highways, for example. We think it’s going to solve some of our safety issues and reduce some of the maintenance required, but we still have to ensure that it’s going to work...

Mr. Speaker, we’ve got a fairly aggressive plan to work on Highway No. 1 and other projects in the Member’s riding, including Highway No. 7. We certainly have heard the comments he made in his Member’s statement on a number of occasions and we’ve put together a budget over the next four years where we’ll be targeting roughly $30 million to...All the portions that require reconstruction, that Highway No. 1, needs to be widened from the border to Enterprise. We’re also looking at doing some reconstruction from the junction of Highway No. 3 towards Simpson and, of course, Highway No. 7 needs...

I certainly agree. Our budget of $126 million, compared to I think Alberta is $20 million for transportation, is a little bit not what we would like to see, but we continue to try to bring information. I appreciate the Member’s comments, because we need to be able to provide the travelling public on road conditions, black ice and bison location. We need to be able to enforce speed limits and any other concerns of safety on our highways, including the width and being able to stop in emergency situations. We will continue to move forward on that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve incorporated a four-year plan to deal with the issue that the Member’s raising on Highway No. 1 from the border to Enterprise and further down towards Highway No. 3. The road width is, I think, eight metres and we are planning to expand and widen the road to a 12-metre roadway system that will allow us to park on the shoulders. We’re also looking at ways to incorporate a number of pull-offs that would assist people that are travelling and want to rest or stop for various reasons. Thank you.

The Housing Corporation, of course, is always very open to having those discussions. We’ve managed to make some considerable headway in one of the Member’s communities. I think Lutselk’e has done a lot of good work in terms of planning for housing, investment housing development. We need to follow through on that and a lot of our other communities. As we move forward and review our results of the 2009 Community Needs Survey, I’d like to see us do more of this type of work. I’d certainly like to work with the Member to implement a similar plan in the community of Fort Resolution.

Mr. Speaker, in all our projects and operations within Transportation and other departments across the government we always worked towards ensuring that our constituents and residents across the Territories have the benefit of operating and living their traditional and cultural lifestyle without any disturbance. Setting up operations in this instance, such as the ferry operations, has involved a lot of people, including a lot of the elders and incorporating traditional knowledge. It’s been an area that we’ve used for operations for quite a few years. In the last while we had an instance where...