Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report that this year’s wildland fire season is off to a slow start compared to the previous two years. As of May 30th, there have only been two wildland fires reported in the Northwest Territories. All indications are the eight-hectare fire near Madeline Lake, along the Ingraham Trail, was a holdover from last fire season, which smouldered underground all winter. It is a strong indication of just how dry forests are in North Slave region. The second fire, 16 kilometres from Kakisa, was person-caused. It was started by an abandoned campfire...

Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has made a commitment in the mandate to strengthen connections with public and private sector partners to improve critical transportation infrastructure in our territory. Earlier this year, a workshop was held with key stakeholders to discuss how to restore safe and effective access to the Hay River Harbour. The Hay River Harbour is NWT's marine gateway, providing services to residents and businesses up and down the Mackenzie River into the High Arctic. The port's strategic location, with connections to CN Rail's Meander subdivision and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our submission was on a number of projects under one bundle. Bundle number two has a number of projects; being various bridges that we talked about in the House yesterday, different road projects, Canyon Creek access road. There's various projects all within bundle number two submitted to the Building Canada Fund.

As the Member knows, we have a 25-year strategic transportation strategy, and we look at all aspects of transportation across the Northwest Territories. I don't believe that this particular request is in there. But we can certainly have a quick study on it. One thing about moving that would be looking at realigning the highway and other things as such to doing that, which would be a great capital cost to the Government of the Northwest Territories, but I can talk to the department about it and get back to the Member.

As the Member alluded to, how can we do a cost analysis? We are presently, I believe, undertaking this under his request. We haven't totally finished it to date. But the reality of the fiscal situation we are in, if we were to extend the ferry hours for the M.V. Lafferty in Fort Simpson, we would probably have to look at doing this for all other ferry systems within the Northwest Territories. Any solution that we would come towards with the community of Fort Simpson would have to probably be extended to other communities across the Northwest Territories. I must remind the Member that any...

Yes, there are a couple of community access road applications within bundle number two, specifically in the Member's riding. When we hear back from the federal government, hopefully by the end of June, we'll be able to communicate those to the Members and figure out how we're going to move these projects forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Bundle number two was submitted to the federal government as a complete package with various projects in it for the Northwest Territories. It is a one-bundle project to the federal government. Thank you.

Yes. We can provide that to the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for his question on the ferry hours and the opportunity to meet with the Chamber in Fort Simpson. To my knowledge, to date we haven't done a complete cost analysis on the ferry for extending it by two hours for this particular. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we are in plan to bring that forward through the process.