Tom Beaulieu

Problems with chipseal are not due to the actual chipseal itself; it’s due to what’s underneath. What we intend to do with the Inuvik airport road is to rebuild sections where there are issues. However, we are also open to trying other products that do work better. If we find that there’s a product that works better almost under any condition, then we would look at that, but the plan now is to rebuild the road, strengthen it and chipseal.

Mr. Chairman, we have no plans to extend the runway in Hay River. Most of the aircraft that are landing there are much smaller than what the airport can handle. You can land 737s at the Hay River Airport, so there is no plan to extend that airport runway at this time.

The entire highway would have been under warranty for one year, so as we pay the contractor for reconstructing the highway, it would have been a holdback for a year and then if the highway held for a year, we couldn’t legally hold a contractor’s money any longer than the year’s warranty. So once that money was released, essentially it was up to us to maintain any issues on the highway after that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I do.

I just have to clear something up here, $4.5 million carried over at the end of the last fiscal year. We had $90 million appropriated for this fiscal year that we’re in and that’s a factor as well. We’re, in this fiscal year, spending the money right now. So I just don’t want to leave that out completely and we didn’t just go from $4.5 and then jump to the $30 million that we’re trying to get now into the House, but there’s the advance, as the Members know, so that last year’s budget was, or this current year’s budget was $90 million.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The plan is to improve the airport road with the Building Canada Fund. We have that particular project in the second bundle that has gone to the federal government. We’re anticipating that we will have some report back from the government, well, approval back from the federal government early in 2016.

There is a recurring issue for repairing dips on Hay River Airport every five years. We are thinking that this is a solution to resolve it and end the issue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The embankment improvements in the recent construction, we are hoping to do four to five kilometres each year, and with the maintenance we try to maintain the full 100 kilometres. So we would put down some material to fix the dips and holes with maintenance and try to maintain the best driving conditions as possible. Thank you.

We will be starting construction next season, ’16-17. About 25 percent of the budget will be spent this coming construction season.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do feel that there is enough money to finish the highway.