Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue again is sometimes we get conflicting messages in our communities. When there is an accident on the winter road, sometimes there is a policy within the Health department that the nurses are unable to go out. With the RCMP, there is a policy. So the community takes it upon themselves to do their rescue here and sometimes it’s difficult in terms of the coordination. I will ask the Minister again, will he work very closely with the officials, work with the communities in terms of who they call and that nobody is left in the dark? Can the Minister...

So what I am hearing -- and the Minister can correct me if I misunderstood this -- is that the communities that are on the winter road system in Tlicho, Behchoko…Sorry, the Tlicho, the Sahtu or the Beaufort-Delta, anywhere where there is a winter road system, the communities in that area come to the department with a proposal to coordinate or organize themselves regarding ground rescue services, and the Minister would be willing to look at this to see how they can coordinate with the different departments to have a coordinated management approach to ground rescue services on the winter road...

Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be working with the Sahtu people through the various meetings between now and the deadline for submission to the Yukon Environmental Assessment Board? Would the Minister work closely with the Sahtu people?

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has said it may affect that. I believe that it will affect the wildlife on our side of the border. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of submitting comments to the proposed project to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board, when will the Minister submit his comments to that board?

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping the Minister would give us the green light to table the economic analysis. In light of his kind response to the tabling, I would ask the Minister if he would give me some of the brief highlights as to what the economic analysis is saying about the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement is going to be on the vision of a Prime Minister from the past, John Diefenbaker, in terms of the Road to Resources and I am going to make reference to the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway in terms of the importance of this piece of infrastructure in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, I was in on several briefings where there are some funds out in Canada that would not consider the Mackenzie Valley Highway as a piece of infrastructure that would be looked at by the federal government. That’s a crying shame that the federal...

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to sitting with the Minister and sharing the document, hopefully on the winter road somewhere, that we can have a discussion on the dreams here.

I want to ask the Minister in terms of his comments on the good opportunity and positive returns, how this type of message gets to Ottawa in terms of would we have this information here. How can we further impress upon the federal government that this is a good investment in the Northwest Territories, a good investment for Canada and how do we get Ottawa to move on this? What else can the Minister provide this House as to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve been here a couple of years and I hear about highways, highways and highways, even chipsealing highways and investment to the highways. Mr. Speaker, sometimes it’s really good to dream, if only we had a highway in the Sahtu.

I want to ask the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Speaker, if he could let me know when he’s going to table the economic analysis of the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take the view and the analogy of Ottawa just like a donkey, you know, in terms of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. You know the trail, you’ve studied the trail. It’s like putting the donkey in front of the trail and trying to make it go -- you’ve got to tug it, yell at it, push it, but it still won’t go even though all the benefits are over there. So I guess, in terms of this Mackenzie Valley Highway -- because so far now we have a goat road into the Sahtu region -- I want to ask the Minister regarding his discussions with his colleagues and also with the federal...

Mr. Chair, certainly the Minister is correct. It’s very difficult to budget for something that you’re not going to expect. I do recognize that and realize that, however, it’s good to know that something that may happen is part of our contingency budget on any type of infrastructure. I think we also experienced this in Fort Good Hope when we had the floods there, not knowing the extent of the floods and they had to work through different departments, and even the federal government, in terms of emergency on floods in the community.

Just again, I know that sometimes, through the paperwork...