Tom Beaulieu

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.

One of the reasons that we’re going through the claim process is to determine what the claim would be. Currently we know, one thing we do know is that the majority of the potential claims would be in the future. It’s something that would be looked at as year three and year four construction winds down. So, what we’ve done is we’ve divided the potential claim. There is actually no claim yet, but the potential claim has been divided in two. It’s $12 million for the construction to date. That’s what we’re engaging in now. The $20 million potential claim is for the coming construction.

What’s...

The Member is correct. Of course, the writ will be dropping within probably the next four weeks or so. So, I guess we will ensure that the Members are advised, if it has to be in writing, advised up until the point the writ is dropped. At that point we have 30 days or 28 days of campaigning period. During that time, if there is a need for a decision, we’re hoping that there would be no need for a decision during the campaign period, but we would govern according to the contract that we have with the company.

The last thing we want to do is stop the project or delay the project. They’re already...

I will endeavour to get that information to the Member as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point I’ve only had the opportunity to review the situation in Fort Simpson. We’ve tried to do a trial, as the Member indicates; however, we found that the two-hour break in the centre was a considerable change to the businesses in Fort Simpson. At this point we were trying to operate the ferry within the time that we have been operating the ferry at the current costs allocated to the ferry and expansion of the hours. An increase in the hours to the ferry in Fort Liard would add substantial cost to the ferry operation, most likely meaning that we would have to...

At this point, it’s necessary for us to assist the Power Corp with some fuel into Aklavik. We are currently working on delivering some tanks. I would say something like this could happen within a couple of weeks once we create some capacity. At this time, aside from the mobile capacity you will be bringing into Aklavik to accommodate the fuel for the Power Corp, the only other capacity is owned by the new private enterprise that is now responsible for fuel in Aklavik. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Public Works fuels services division is responsible for the communities that are considered to be non-market communities. Aklavik is a market community. In Aklavik the fuel and the gasoline have been distributed by a private company up until this year, and the private company is continuing with a change of ownership again this year. However, we are having discussions with them as a result of the concerns from the community and the petition that was sent out.

There may be a decision made prior to the writ dropping, to continue the operations, to continue the construction of the Inuvik-Tuk Highway. There will be no decision made after the writ is dropped until after the election of the 18th Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the committee meeting of Priorities and Planning yesterday in the House, I committed to providing regular weekly updates on this potential claim to the committee. Thank you.

I’m prepared to have the department provide the cost of increasing the ferry that crosses the Liard to 18 hours to see what has to occur, what regulations we have to look at. I’m pretty sure that if we do, I think that regulation only monitors the amount of crews that we currently have. So, if we added a crew it should be well within regulation, so the issue would be costs. So, I’m prepared to provide that information to the Member. Thank you.