Statements in Debates
That would be a great piece of work and a great project, no question about it. It would be a big part of the Mackenzie Valley Highway if that was to be built. The community had a very, very good plan. They are in support of the Mackenzie Valley highway and it was important for them to get to the first gravel access. They had indicated to us that it was about 30 kilometres of fairly flat territory that was good ground except for two short areas, two small spots, actually, as they put it on the road where they thought there were some swamps. Aside from that, they thought it was a very easy...
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.
We have not gotten to that point. We did receive a text message from the mayor asking if I was available for discussion. Unfortunately, I have not made contact with the mayor at this point. I am prepared to talk with the leadership, along with the private company, to try to come up with a solution for Aklavik so there’s not such a steep increase in the cost of fuel and gasoline for Aklavik. Thank you.
We are currently engaging with the new private company that is providing fuel to the community of Aklavik. We have been having discussions right up until yesterday, perhaps even today, especially with them. We, too, have a concern with the cost of fuel for operating the power plant in Aklavik, who we are continuing to have discussions with them currently. Thank you.
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...