Wally Schumann

The department received $18 million under the Building Canada Plan to address this section of road, and we will continue to spend that until that is exhausted and then we can find external funds to continue on working on that road.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Many Members in this House have heard me talk about permafrost degradation and the number of different scientific stations we have placed on this highway. This road is going to continue to settle probably for a number of years, and we are doing the best we can with the allocation of money we get from the federal government to maintain the highway system in the Northwest Territories. We have put significant resources into this road. I have been quoted as saying we could spend all of Infrastructure's DOT money on this section of highway, and we would still be behind the...

Yes, I do.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The details of this will be when they put in their full proposal to submit their bid. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize Nia Mckenzie-Steinwand, one of the Pages from Hay River South, and thank you for your great work this week, Nia.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This highway gets more money than any other highway in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

The department has investigated the advantages and disadvantages of doing this to the runways across the Northwest Territories. One of the cons of this whole thing is, if we were to even do this, say, in the northern region, put chipseal down and the chipseal peels up, it could cause delays on those runways and disrupt service to them; but the other side of it is the cost of the equipment that would be needed to repair these. We're not going to go out and buy paving equipment for each community to be able to address this thing.

Based on performance around that, Transport Canada does not treat...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. All three proponents that have been selected that are short-listed for this project are going to have Tlicho companies involved in the construction of this road. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The work that is committed on this section of highway is done through a structural assessment of all highways of the Northwest Territories. I think I mentioned in the House here today how much money has been allocated towards that, but above that, there are also the large culvert replacements on the section of highway, chipseal overlay, along with the BCP money that has been allocated towards this section of highway. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Infrastructure works closely with all our airport maintainers and airlines to monitor maintenance operations at all our airports across the Northwest Territories. We also conduct detailed airport inspections and assessments twice a year on all airports within the Northwest Territories and every year in the Nunakput region. We just finished a detailed inspection actually at the end of July with a number of personnel who went up there. We had engineers, electricians, surface specialists, and operations managers assessing each airport in the region. Thank...