Wally Schumann

Thank you. Mr. Speaker. To answer the Member's question, the Department of Transportation is indeed responsible for the maintenance and reconstruction of the Hay River road. This section of road was part of the highway devolution agreement that came forward in the late 1980s and the department has funded to operate and maintain this road. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I alluded to earlier in my statement that the transportation of Canada inspector was in. He was there to look at the Tsiigehtchic ferry as we replaced the bottom of that ferry and put it in and do its seaworthiness which takes a couple days of trials and stuff. When they were finished that they moved on to the Peel ferry. The Peel ferry is in the process of going through its inspection as such and with the low water now expected after high water from breakup we now have five anchor points available to run this ferry. The original anchor points that showed up after breakup, there were only...

As I said, we took a look at this and we're moving ahead with the rehabilitation process. As far as the funding for the Buffalo River Bridge, that's already been approved by Infrastructure Canada and work planning is already currently underway to proceed with that project. A number of things that we are going to be doing under the rehabilitation process is the truss strengthening, replacement to the half of the deck on some of these bridges, and pier repair and painting as well.

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

I would have to look into that question, if that was the reason for that. One thing I can tell the Assembly is that the cost of repairing and keeping the upkeep on the road system in the Northwest Territories is significant, and we have challenges with that on a daily basis. There is only so much infrastructure money to go around for the whole Northwest Territories and transportation has a serious need of upkeep on some of the infrastructure needs. I can look into what the Member is asking and get back to him on it.

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is the Hay River/Pine Point Bridge was submitted to Infrastructure Canada on May 27th as part of the bridge rehabilitation project. This particular project we expect to have approved by mid-June or end of June. Thank you.

I think it's a little premature to say the barge is going to be there shortly. I know that the sailing season historically leaves Hay River in late June. I'm not saying that is all this ice and stuff is going to melt on these landings, but this is definitely a federal jurisdiction. It is something that has been pointed out in the CTA report along with other issues across the North, and we will continue work with the federal government to see if we can reinstate this funding to make sure all the ports and harbours in the Northwest Territories have access.

That is something that hasn't come before me so I'm not aware of any people wanting to make claims against Transportation on the road conditions, but we continue to put signage up and everything in efforts to ensure that there's safe travel for everybody in the general public.

As many Members in the Assembly know, this year the roads across the Northwest Territories have some issues just because of the way of thawing. We've had an early spring this year and it's created some challenges on the complete road system in the Northwest Territories, but on this road in particular with the poor drainage that's on the right of ways and the department is currently making efforts to improve the drainage on this road, and we continue to look at how we're going to upgrade the subgrade of this road. Work will commence soon as time allows.

As I alluded, there's five anchor points now available and as of today the slipways are being prepped and the timbers are being installed to launch the ferry. As of this evening, we plan on having the ferry into the Peel system and with more seaworthiness testing we're hoping to have the ferry service in operation by late Wednesday, early Thursday morning.