Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This evaluation of this RFP is going to get us to look at some options that would address the cost of operating the airport. As I indicated, and as the Member also indicated, this is costing us about $2 million. So, the option could be if we want to address this immediately, it would be to raise the price of the tickets of the travelling public, or we could raise the cost to the companies that are operating out of the airport. Again, they would probably likely just pass the costs on to the tickets. So, I would say that if we wanted to raise the $2 million, it would cost...

There would mainly be three options, alternatives that we would look at. We would look at a Crown corporation; we’re going to look at airport authority and even possibly using a GNWT revolving fund similar to the way we administer petroleum products.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. There have been several reports. There was an indication that there may have been seven reports done on airport governance but there may be more than that. There have been a few reports done since then. Thank you.

Thank you. Change is a difficult thing when you’re operating at the airport. We have tried to initiate some of those changes that were not too intrusive and it was difficult to do. So we are still looking at those things and it has taken some time, but the airport is operational. We are expending more money than we are taking in at this time, so we’re looking at some options now that would not pass too much of the costs on to the travelling public. Thank you.

Thank you. The fact is it costs $7 million a year to operate the airport and our revenues at this time are $5 million. So in order to make the numbers match, we’d have to raise revenues by $2 million. So that could be an airport improvement fund on the tickets, like I indicated, or we reduce the operating costs or maybe reduce service at the airport to reduce the costs, but those are the costs now. So the government is now looking at those three different options that I indicated: an airport authority that is in place in many airports; a Crown corporation, which would be similar to the Housing...

Mr. Speaker, the volume at the Yellowknife Airport changes fairly regularly. Right now we have approximately 500,000 passengers moving through Yellowknife Airport on an annual basis. We are looking at that now. We are hoping to… The RFP will close. We’re going to do an evaluation. What I’m seeing, just by drawing a timeline from March 2nd for the evaluation, hiring the actual consultant that’s going to be doing the work, I’m seeing that the results of that would likely be sitting on the desks of the 18th Assembly. We’re not sloughing the responsibility, but we’re looking at the timeline.

I...

The latest report was completed in March 2014. It looked at five similar types of airports as far as landings and passenger volumes go and because of their varying governance systems. We’ve looked at those five reports. We’ve now put an RFP out, which will close on March 2nd, to examine the various alternatives in those five different airports to determine which governance structure we feel would be the best to move forward with the Yellowknife Airport. Thank you.

We will do what we can to try to fix the road up, maybe pay some special attention to that portion of the road. We noticed on our drive there, about half of that road is in pretty good shape. So we’re probably talking about 60 to 80 kilometres of road that is rough as we get nearer to Fort Good Hope.

What we can also do is have the indication of the number or any of the people that need to be contacted to address winter road issues on the website. Then I’ll have the people attend to that winter road website to ensure that the contact people are there for this weekend. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe those can be done. The Member and I talked about that when we were on the winter road and the department also noted that the kilometre markers were non-existent and they felt that it was important that those be put in. We have the two guys up there now working on the winter road, plus the supervisor. So, I’ll have the department look into placing them, maybe not one at every kilometre, but in strategic locations throughout the winter road.

I don’t have the number for the dredging of the Hay River port, although we do have that number at the department. I don’t have the number here with me. I don’t believe we have a number for all of the dredging that would be required for the entire waterway where the company out of Hay River would haul freight. I don’t have that full number, but I can let the Member know what the number is for dredging the Hay River, our estimate. Also, we can get estimates for other parts of the waterway. Thank you.