Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. Yes, we are. It’s essentially the same plan that we’ve been running for seven years. It is a plan that’s worth $4 million a year for the last seven years that has been spent and we thought that it would just roll into this new Corridors for Canada III. However, there seems to be a one-year gap in between. We were hoping that didn’t exist, but yes, we will be continuing to widen the road moving forward with money that comes from the federal government. Thank you.

The Inuvik-Tuk highway is a design build highway. We are heavily involved in working with the joint venture up there, the EGT Northwind and in the construction of that highway. We think it’s a good approach. It’s a good approach for the Inuvik-Tuk highway. We would look at all of our procurement avenues when we build any major infrastructure like this.

At this time it would be unwise, I think, to say that we would go and negotiate a contract on that section of highway. We recognize that that highway will be running through two different regions. About 100 kilometres will be through the Deh Cho...

Mr. Speaker, to date, the GNWT has spent $128 million on that section of road; we’re referring to a road up the Mackenzie Valley. Slowly we’ve continued to work on that. We’ve put quite a few of the bridges in. We’re continuing to put bridges in which not only will work well for the future all-season road but also works well for extending the length in which the winter road will remain open. Plus, like I indicated, a proposal to the federal government on the national infrastructure program.

With that, we will be providing some information to the federal government, but for the most part, we’re...

Mr. Speaker, earlier we had provided some funding to the group in order to make sure that that access road into Jean Marie is ready before the Dehcho Assembly. I’ll touch base, again, with the region, to the department, to ensure that was enough money to ensure that road was ready for people to drive in there for the Dehcho Assembly. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, unlike the Member, I don’t know where each of the kilometres start and end. I do believe that the highway that the Member refers to, I think, is from 395 to 411, and that’s the part of the road where we are applying new chipseal. But I cannot confirm that in the House today, if that was the exact section that the Member is referring to, but I would be glad to get that information immediately and get back to the Member. Thank you.

I do believe that the department does have a handle on the issue. It is a relatively new thing, as I indicated, about three and a half years we have been charging people for distracted driving. I think over time it would become very apparent. It would probably be viewed as poorly as people view impaired driving within a very short period of time. Like I said, it’s probably more dangerous than that. So we’re very serious, the department, about doing something about it.

I see distracted driving all the time too. In fact, I just watched almost an accident two days ago as an individual was waiting...

Again, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that we haven’t spent a whole lot of time nominating ourselves and maybe a very, very minor piece of work that was done in order to promote ourselves as a good employer. It’s a competition. It’s not like we nominated ourselves and we’re guaranteed to go on the list. Like I said, only a certain group of individual companies and governments and organizations are selected.

As far as summer students go, we’re on schedule to hire an equivalent amount of students that we’ve had every summer. As of May 2, we had hired 217 summer students, of which 70...

That type of campaign seems to have limited impact on an individual deciding to continue driving while distracted. One of the steps we are taking immediately is to increase the fines for individuals who are found to be distracted driving. This is perhaps not enough of a fine, but the fines have gone up from $115 to $280 if you’re caught driving while you’re on your phone or texting. So that is one step and we’ll see how that works. Probably we’d have to do something more severe to start to bend the curve downward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Canada’s top employer for youth is a process where there’s a selection committee. They look at about 800 applications, roughly 800 applications at one time and select what they consider to be the top 100. It’s not, I guess, solely related to whether or not we recruit, but it makes it more attractive if we can advertise that we are amongst Canada’s top youth and student employers, then we are more attractive in that sense. In that sense, I guess, we would be assisting in recruitment from that aspect of it. Thank you.

Thank you. The department will do all it can to talk to the federal government, to meet with the federal government, have discussions, try to get the agreement signed off as quickly as possible so that there is no disruption in the work that ended last summer and that we’re hoping to roll into this year. We’re doing all we can, and unfortunately, I cannot stand up here and make a commitment for the federal government as to when they will release the money. But we’re doing all we can to try to get that done as quickly as possible.