Tom Beaulieu

There is no indication that there is any issue with the granular material that is on the bypass road.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount of money that is being carried over is enough to meet the commitments with a contractor to complete the project.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That money will be used to prepare the road right from where the paving stopped until where the road connects to the other road, and we’ll be applying chipseal and also putting up the signage. That would cover the $1.2 million that’s identified in here.

Yes, the methods that are employed when we do new construction, the insulation value and the envelope of the building are designed to be as energy efficient as possible. So with the rising costs of energy right across the country, when we build anything new, we do that with the concept of having as energy efficient as possible construction as we can. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Public Works does a lot of energy retrofits. We track all of the greenhouse gases that we save through energy retrofits. We track all of the money that we save by using energy retrofits and installing biomass in our buildings, then we put that money back into more energy retrofits and biomass.

With the hospital, we will be using a biomass heating system and the envelope of the building would be of a high energy standard. Thank you.

We do try to buy fuel, heating fuel, motor fuel and gasoline at the lowest possible price. We do make a call on the price of gasoline. We do buy mid-grade gasoline. It’s very important to the communities to have gasoline that doesn’t de-grade. If we buy low-grade gasoline, which is four cents a litre cheaper, the communities also realize that sometimes when we buy a lower grade gasoline there have been issues with snowmobiles and boat motors and so on. When people are out on the land, it’s essential that they have good gas, so we do pay four cents a litre more for that, but we do try to get...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The plan is to chipseal the highway. I’m very familiar with the product the Member speaks of. There was no discussion between the government and the industry that would provide Easy Street on that highway at this time. I think we are in a contract that says that we will be chipsealing the highway. If the company decides that they would put a different application on there within the same dollar amount, then perhaps the government and industry could sit down together and discuss that possibility. But moving forward, our intention is to chipseal at this time.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The biggest contributor to the increase of heating fuel has been the wholesale cost of fuel. The wholesale cost of fuel over a 12-month period from early 2013 to early 2014 was 20 cents a litre. That is the price increase of the wholesale price when we purchased it Edmonton, and somehow that contributed to, for example, an increase of 17 cents a litre in Yellowknife.

The money that is put in here is a carry-over from an agreed contracted amount between the Department of Public Works and the contractor that did the work. As far as the government is concerned, we have a contract in place. There is a commitment on the part of the company to complete that road 100 percent according to the contract that they have in place, and our intention to do that.

All the highways in the NWT that are public highways are safe, as is this bypass road.