Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 34)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The funds were approved and we had presented a plan to the federal government and the plan was approved, but the money for the plan and how the money is going to roll out from the federal government has yet to be determined. Unfortunately, we are still in the process of negotiating when and how the money will flow. We don’t want to spend the money up front if that’s not the way the federal government is hoping to advance the money to us, so we’re going to talk to them and then determine exactly what is acceptable and when the money starts to flow, and then hopefully...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 34)

During our meeting with the leadership when we were meeting on the Mackenzie Valley road, the leadership had indicated to us that they were going to provide a proposal to us, a proposal that will be presented to the federal government and other departments in the federal government so that they can provide some funding through various avenues. One of the things that the leadership was very focused on was to try to access some quarries and that they wanted to build some of the road using some access money from the federal government and some money from the various other agencies and departments...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 34)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time what we have completed is a proposal. We recognize that this is something that’s been in the works for many, many years. This year, prior to March 31st, we as a government, with the Premier and Minister responsible for infrastructure, Minister McLeod, were able to put together an initial proposal that we forwarded to the federal government. We have received a response. The federal government is looking for some more detail, some more technical detail, maybe closer, better estimates on what the actual costs could be. So we’ve received that letter and we are...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 34)

Mr. Speaker, certainly I will look into that. I will talk to the department, and the department, in turn, will contact the regional office out of Simpson and confirm any issues with the road. If there are serious issues with that road, then we’ll repair it. Thank you.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 34)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are three main pieces of work happening in the area that the Member speaks of. On Highway No. 7 we are resurfacing and putting new chipseal down from zero to kilometre 20, and the Member knows exactly where that is. Also, on Highway No. 1, we are going to apply new chipseal. I believe there was some chipseal down. We’re going to apply new chipseal from kilometre 395 to 411. Also, again on Highway No. 1 just as it flows into the Member’s riding, from kilometre 188 to kilometre 206 we’re going to resurface and put on new chipseal. Thank you.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 34)

Like I said, we do get 700 to 800 applicants to our summer students. We hire around 300. We’re on target to do that again. We tried to do a fairly even split between Yellowknife, where the majority of the public service is, and out there in the regions and the communities. We do have 100 or so competitions at one time because we can’t run all the vacancies at one time. All the positions to recruit, we cannot run them all at one time. They’re at varying stages. Some of them may be at the offer stage, some are at the appeals stage, some are just becoming vacant and so on, so there is a constant...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 34)

The Member is correct; our fines are very low. So this is the reason we are increasing them, more than doubling them from what we have of $115 to $280. Also, in addition to that, we are going to step up the advertising and campaign of making people aware of how dangerous it is to do distracted driving. We know figures show in reality, distracted driving is more dangerous than impaired driving. We are going to have to be as severe with distracted driving as we are with impaired driving. Thank you.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 33)

I will have the department look at that possibly. I do believe that we have a certain amount of staff, like I indicated, and then we were getting close to that maximum, so if we were to do something different, I think we would have to add staff. I will have the department go back and look at that. At this time, as I indicated, the labour code seems to be the issue, and that we had talked to the members of the Liidlii Kue First Nation and their feeling was that if we had a 16-hour window that we could slide, that they would prefer to stay with the current hours and not open at 7:00 a.m.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 33)

Mr. Speaker, with the amount of employees that we have and the hours of operation and start-up time and shutdown time, the barrier is the Canadian Labour Code. They only allow an individual doing that type of work to work a maximum of 60 hours. With the shifts, I think we’re very close to that. Adding an extra hour means that individuals will be over that time allotment. That is the barrier right now, so I don’t know what the alternative would be.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 33)

The department does buy all fuel at wholesale. We do try to look for the best wholesale price. Having said that, I am not able to answer the Member’s question. I don’t have the information of what our anticipated fuel costs would be going into the future.

What we do is we have the trends that we recognize that fuel goes up and down on a daily basis and then slowly inching upward, but we recognize that the wholesale purchase this year compared to the wholesale purchase last year was substantially higher this year. Therefore, there were increases of up to 19 cents, 20 cents on a litre of gasoline...