Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We agree that the ferry operations in the Beaufort-Delta went very well this year. I do believe traffic was closed for one day only. I’m sorry, I had an understanding it was only closed for one day for regular traffic. The deputy minister tells me it was actually eight days. I don’t know if that was heavy traffic. I guess on average we were closed for eight days.

The aviation scholarship is something that people do benefit from. We do have a reduction in that scholarship this year, but we’re also re-examining how we can use that scholarship money.

Investment in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with the Member. The contractors in the Sahtu that build the winter roads do a good job, a good job of maintaining it. Some years, depending on the volumes of snowfall largely determines some of the conditions. There is heavy snowfall at times, so the grading that is scheduled inside the contracts can’t keep up. On the other hand, sometimes there is a minimal amount of snowfall and that causes some of the road to be rough. We have to work with the conditions, do an estimate on what we think the standard is. We pretty well know. For example, last year people weren...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right is Russell Neudorf, deputy minister, Department of Transportation; to my left, Daniel Auger, assistant deputy minister, Department of Transportation; and to my far right, Jim Martin, director of corporate services, Department of Transportation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would commit to driving Highway No. 7 to Liard and also to Wrigley with the Member. Thank you.

Yes, that work will be completed this summer.

The shelf life of fuel is about three years, and we also need the capacity in order to store fuel. The Member is correct; there are possibilities of renting storage for fuel, but I think the cost of fuel would have to be considerably lower than what we’re anticipating in the future in order to make it feasible. So right now we’re looking at filling up our own capacities, to buy as much fuel as possible at this point with the capacity that we currently have without renting from outside of government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to have the deputy minister or the director respond on the variance and the net fiscal benefit information and the Vote 1 revenues.

For the Detah road, we have all of the money in place now to reconstruct the Detah road completely.

We have some money in capital that we’ve spent and then the rest of it we’ve put in year one of the Building Canada Plan. This year when we did our first bundle, that’s work that’s going to be done under Building Canada Plan. The entire amount to finish that road, 100 percent, is in year one, so we’re pleased with that.

The Niven...

These prices are for this year. We think that the price may stabilize or go back up a bit, but we haven’t hedged the cost of fuel moving forward. We have the Stabilization Fund that’s designed to stabilize the fuel costs in the communities. When the fuel prices go down, we increase the Stabilization Fund. When the fuel prices go back up, we decrease the Stabilization Fund, keeping it stable but not two years into the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We agree that’s the right program to do exactly what the Member is requesting. We encourage the community to put in an access road proposal to pay to keep that road open. We can have the local guys talk to the leadership over there, wherever we are going to receive a proposal from, to see if they could obtain that proposal from them for using the access road money to keep that road open.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize some individuals from Tu Nedhe today. First, I would like to recognize our interpreters that have been interpreting all week here. There is a new interpreter in there, Dennis Drygeese from Lutselk’e and, of course, also the veteran interpreter, Tommy Unka from Fort Resolution. Also, we have two Pages from Lutselk’e, Dacho Poole and Johnny Yassie, and their chaperone, Jordan Michel. I am not sure if he is here today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.