Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, both the $600,000 and $200,000 are in the budgets for design checks.

Mr. Chairman, we certainly have been trying to deal with the large amount of requirements for bridges in the Northwest Territories. We have actively worked on 37 new bridges that we’ll have in place over the last while. We have now a total of 77 bridges in the highway system. There are still five major bridges that need to be addressed at some point. It is a concern. The Liard River Bridge, the Ndulee crossing, the Bear River Bridge, the Peel River Bridge, as the Member has indicated, and also the Mackenzie crossing at Tsiigehtchic are all requirements that probably should have been addressed...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A number of questions there. Mr. Chairman, I think the Member would agree that the rationale for using gravel is as a result of the nature of the landing. The type of soil that’s in that area requires us to use gravel to stabilize the landings. There was a study done in 2001 that looked at the situation and it deemed that the process was adequate. The approaches continue to be utilized because, first of all, it’s cost effective.

Mr. Chairman, we also operate under a water licence that has strict criteria to follow and we are meeting the guidelines.

Mr. Chairman, I also...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, with me today I have the deputy minister of Transportation, Mr. Russell Neudorf, and also the assistant deputy minister, Mr. Daniel Auger.

Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

Mr. Chairman, we’d be pleased to share the numbers that we have in terms of collection and receivables from his riding if the Member would like. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, this budget was put together prior to the federal money being announced. We are not in a position to revise it as we have not formally entered an agreement. We are still sorting out the detail. We expect to have something in place by March 2nd, and per our financial FMB rules, we have to just present what we have dollars planned to spend. There will be a change when we bring forward the new dollars that will be spread over two years. That will be focussed on a little more than just homeownership.

Mr. Chairman, this was the reality of the day with the dollars that we had in our...

Mr. Speaker, this issue was raised by the Gwich’in leadership. We will look into the situation and take the opportunity to talk to the Member in that area. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I am not sure how many Finance Ministers were asked the same question, and it has been reviewed very recently and the response has not changed.

Thank you. I guess, in a nutshell, the program will probably…We expect will be designed to support communities to enter into loans or borrow the money from financial institutions and also provide some type of incentive. Thank you.