Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. The best thing the Department of Transportation could probably do is continue to work with the local industry and lobby the federal government for more money to do the dredging. The federal government recognizes that there are areas that have to be dredged, so it’s not like they don’t think it’s necessary. Everybody agrees that it’s completely necessary. We would be happy, as a department, to continue to work with industry. I would also be happy to facilitate a meeting between the federal government and industry in order to complete some dredging. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The dredging of any rivers or ports is the responsibility of the federal government. However, we have, in the past, participated and I believe in 2012-13 we got some money from the federal government and we did some dredging right at the port. So we continue to work with the federal government to see if there’s money that can be had to continue the dredging.

Mr. Speaker, the health and safety of our employees is of utmost importance in ensuring we have a strong workforce, able to provide services to residents of the NWT. We have been working aggressively to uphold and enhance occupational health and safety across all Government of the Northwest Territories worksites.

To this end, we are pleased to confirm the launch of the GNWT’s corporate Occupational Health and Safety Training Program. OHS training helps all employees understand the value of health and safety to reduce workplace injuries. There are two streams. One focuses on training for all...

Thank you. The Department of Transportation has certain load limits and certain speed limits on roads when there is hauling going on and so on. Those are designed to ensure that the roads do not fall apart and deteriorate quicker than is normally expected. So with the speed limits, the amount of weight that is carried on the tires that the truck is using and so on is all calculated so that the roads last a certain period of time. With those calculations, the Department of Transportation is not concerned that this piece of infrastructure will deteriorate any faster than what we anticipate...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A joint venture group has been building the secondary winter road on the Ingraham Trail to handle the increased traffic. However, the department understands that they will not be constructing that road, or unlikely that they will be constructing that road. The department’s first priority is safety and we will be looking at stepping up some of the highway patrols there and putting some people on there for security for 24 hours a day during the winter road season. However, the road is being rebuilt and I’m not sure that the increased traffic is going to do damage to the...

Mr. Speaker, improving the delivery of programs and services, especially to residents of smaller, remote communities, is an important goal for our government. Later this fiscal year the Department of Transportation will be providing residents with the option to access driver and motor vehicle services from the comfort of their homes, workplaces or from anywhere else with an Internet connection. Services will be available from any computer, smartphone or tablet with an Internet connection, and with expanding cellular coverage across the territory, that’s just about anywhere.

It has taken over...

Thank you. From what I understand, the Inuvik-Tuk highway is funded heavily by the federal government. The intention there is not solely for the extraction of materials. That highway is not going to be in and specifically designed for the resource developers to use. It is there to put a highway in to the Arctic Ocean.

So for sure resource developers will be using it, but it’s funded… Again, the majority of that road is funded by the federal government. They put the money in there. That’s why the road is being built, but it’s not really tied into the resource extraction in that area. Thank you.

Thank you. Although I haven’t gotten into the details, how I think it should work is if industry is bringing a lot of resources into the Territories, then the government should be there to support industry to allow industry easy access to resources so they’re able to pay for the resources that are taken off the land. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize two Pages from Lutselk'e: Nathan Catholique and Ethan Rambough.

We spend slightly over $6 million in community counselling. A lot of the community counsellors are from the communities that they work in, so they may be involved. The other thing is certainly our involvement would be that we are a funder for the on-the-land treatment program. Where we can assist in other areas, the department is prepared to do that.