Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Friendly times. As I've said, I've committed to putting up a temporary lighting system there. We will look after any signage that is needed as per the Highway Traffic Act, and we will make sure that is in place as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, early in the new year, an important milestone was achieved with the announcement of conditional federal funding to construct the Tlicho all-season road. This represents a critical step towards fulfilling the mandate of the 18th Legislative Assembly to capture opportunities for investment in transportation infrastructure in the Northwest Territories.

This milestone was achieved through the strength of our partnership with Canada and the Tlicho Government. Together, we recognize the importance of strategic infrastructure investments for improving the standard of living in remote...

Do you mean signage or do you mean lighting? Lighting, we've committed to having up here as soon as the ground thaws out. I have never said I was going to commit to new signage. I said we would look at putting up a temporary light to get us through until we can put the lighting system in once the ground thaws out, Mr. Speaker. Any relevant signage that would be imposed on the highways is based on the Traffic Act that we have to impose and put up traffic signs there, so whatever needed signage is there will be in place when the lights are put up.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will assure the Member that we will have a look at how we can access some of this stuff and look into it.

I am going to have to look into this matter with the department, but as I have said, when I was the Minister of ENR, this question was brought up. I believe that there have been some other people in the Northwest Territories, Aboriginal governments, and groups that are looking at how to implement this not just across the Northwest Territories but across Canada as a whole, I believe.

We are still working on those sorts of things. There are all kinds of input from these themes going around to the communities from how we are going to support more biomass for communities, portability of energy moving forward, how do we implement some of these things going forward. Also, we have to look at what kind of federal investment we are going to get moving forward, and we are looking forward to the budget coming forward with the liberal government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The consultation that is going on presently, we have two communities to finish up. We have Hay River and Fort Simpson, I believe, and then we are also probably going to try to meet with Behchoko and the Tlicho government. Once this stuff is all pulled together, we will put a report together and probably release it later on this year.

As the Minister of Public Works and of Transportation, I have to look out for the good of all Northerners, not just Hay River. So much for the perks. The town of Hay River is working closely with CN Rail to obtain a safe crossing at the railway crossing, as well. Plus, the Town of Hay River has also had in their minutes that they are looking after their sidewalk along that side of the highway to get to this particular crosswalk. We will continue to work with all stakeholders, them, the health authority, the RCMP -- the NTCL, no -- the community, on how we're going to proceed with this and get...

Moving forward, we anticipate to have this resolved, hopefully with either another tender or else negotiating how we are going to fit this in within our budget restraints of what we have allocated for this project. When we do move forward, we are going to have to wait for the ground to thaw out to be able to install this set of lights at the crossing.

All our six parks are in the South Slave, as the Member alluded to that are in his riding  or, actually, in the South Slave, I guess. We continue to work with all Aboriginal groups and communities on how we are going to expand, how do we maintain and work with them, and how do we work with the community governments and Aboriginal governments to bring more economic opportunities based around tourism. We will continue to have that dialogue with all stakeholders in the region and across the Northwest Territories on how to improve that. We will continue to do that.