Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Bill 49, An Act to Amend the Deh Cho Bridge Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Deh Cho Bridge Act to make use of terminology that is more consistent with the Motor Vehicles Act, remove provisions concerning annual reporting with respect to collection of tolls for each fiscal year, clarify when drivers and owners of motor vehicles are liable for non-payment of tows, clarify powers and duties of a transport officer, add provisions that allow the admissibility of evidence of camera...

If that’s a new project, then it will have to come to the House for approval. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re going to meet with the city, myself and the MACA folks. I’ve been sitting here arranging something where we can get together and sit down and meet with the city. We want to come up with a solution. I don’t want to stand here and say that the solution is for us to fix it and give the road to the city. That is something that I think we’re going to work on together. Thank you.

Like I indicated, there’s no easy solution. Even if we were to build an underpass, again, that would be fine for individuals returning to Niven because they would be facing traffic and then going under the underpass to get home to their proper side or the Niven side of the road. But that doesn’t solve the issue of the people coming to the city because their backs will be to the traffic. Then, as most people know, the highway becomes sort of a three lane as you turn into the Legislative Assembly and the museum. So, again, that’s a little bit of an unsafe area for pedestrians to be walking.

At...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Back in 2011 there was a Public Transit Fund that was given to the city to try to resolve the issue of the crossing at Niven Lake. After carefully examining the project – they were looking at an underpass, actually – after carefully examining that and having some difficulty with getting some land on the Niven Lake side of the road, it was determined to be unfeasible and the money was spent on another transit project within the city. Thank you.

Like I indicated, we will meet with the City of Yellowknife. If a solution is for the City of Yellowknife to improve the road, if it needs improvement and it’s agreed on this side of the House and that side of the House that we can do a supplementary appropriation to pay for the road that’s been rebuilt to standard by the city, then that’s the direction we’ll go. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wasn’t aware that that was a substandard access road. So, the reason that we weren’t fixing it is because I didn’t know it was a substandard access road.

Like I said, we are going to meet with them. The Member is correct; this road has been discussed for a long time, since that development has occurred, and we’re all concerned about the safety of the pedestrians who are using that road to access the city. We want to sit down with the city and MACA and come up with a solution that will be feasible and will work for the safety of the people accessing that road. Thank you.

The solution most likely lies outside the jurisdiction of the Minister of Transportation; however, we will meet with the city. We will talk to our MACA counterparts. If there’s going to be a new hotel built in there, maybe there’s a solution where there could be a trail coming off this end of the Niven Lake development, coming into the area near the Explorer. That’s the only solution.

Any time you start having traffic on a road that has fast-moving vehicles, it is an unsafe situation. It would be similar to just having people walk on the road down Franklin as opposed to walking on the sidewalk...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to have the deputy minister provide that information on the mandate of the new energy division.

The Member is correct. As the House knows, we had lowered the fuel costs, using our Stabilization Fund, between 8 and 9 cents recently. Now that we’re finishing our deliveries, we’re seeing more savings and fully intend on lowering the fuel costs as we’re finished deliveries into the communities. At this point, even with the lower cost of fuel – and it’s a fairly substantial drop in the cost of fuel – biomass is still feasible. Maybe the payback would be extended a couple of years perhaps, but we were getting a fairly decent quick payback on biomass, so we still consider biomass to be a...