Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, at the rise of the House today I will speak with my DM and look at the issue of the Aklavik landing site and see what we can do within a short period of time, hopefully before the barges land in Aklavik.

I’m certainly looking forward to going to Aklavik sometime, but I need to sit down with my colleagues and Mr. Bowden to see about talking to and arranging a meeting with the people in Aklavik and to sit down with the MLA in terms of coordinating the dates. I’m hoping to go to Aklavik and have this very important meeting sometime in the next couple of months. Of course, that means coordinating all our schedules to get into Aklavik.

The department is definitely committed. The Premier has stated his commitment. We need to get into Aklavik and show our commitment as other communities have shown theirs. We certainly want to sit down with Aklavik. We want to look at the best way to approach this access road to the people of Aklavik and start working on it. We need to get there and look at the final numbers and sit down and get to work.

Mr. Speaker, in the department’s O&M plans and forecasts starting in ’09–10, we’re looking at improving the safety of the Nahanni Butte runway in terms of improvements to that runway. In Jean Marie we had to do some brushing in September of last year. There used to be lights in Jean Marie. However, on two occasions those runway lights were damaged. The department has indicated that they could look at putting some cones there. These runways are used by the charter companies.

There are other options that we’re looking at for Nahanni and Jean Marie in terms of emergency lighting on the runways...

Mr. Speaker, we’ve been very fortunate with the federal government in terms of having money available for communities for issues such as Mr. Krutko has raised. We certainly will have a discussion with the communities and see what the long-term solutions of this docking issue might be. Other communities use the barging system for re-supply, and we certainly would encourage communities to take advantage of this program so we can fix their long-term problem and so, as Mr. Krutko said, it wouldn’t be coming back up for discussion in the House. I certainly will look into that. I’ll ask the marine...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our Marine Division we do have a program for marine docks and supplies. I would be happy to talk with the Member and the community of Aklavik in terms of how we could access that program to address some of the concerns he’s raised today.

Yes.

I want to assure the members of Aklavik and also the MLA for Mackenzie Delta that, through the discussions and exchange with the Premier and myself, we are committed to going into Aklavik to look at the access road and at what it will cost us. We have our numbers; Aklavik will have their numbers. We’ll look at a partnership arrangement and see where we go from there.

Mr. Speaker, no.

Mr. Speaker, I’ve indicated I will speak to my deputy as soon as possible at the rise of this House, and hopefully I’ll have an answer for Mr. Krutko before the end of this week.