Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Member. Yes, we have worked with industry to extend the hours there, in Simpson, for an extra couple of hours during the summer. I think that has worked out great.

The department is always looking at ways to improve partnership and innovation or efficiencies on our ferries. These are challenging times these days, with the climate change and water levels that are happening.

The department has this coming capital plan on his specific ferry for his region. In the capital acquisition plan that was tabled earlier in this session, we are going to have new...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We can actually maybe get that information for you, as well. There are 10 vehicles, and they range from $2,790 to $4,750, depending on their size. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, the Member keeps calling this an error and he keeps trying to blame MTS and that's not the case.

As I did in my Member's statement, there are all types of events that happened that caused this problem. It all started off, as I said in the House the other day with my Minister's statement, that's why we are sitting here, was because of the high water that knocked all the buoys out, the delivery of fuel to the Hay River terminal that didn't meet spec that delayed the scheduling to all the communities again, and this multi-year sea ice that came down.

We worked very...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, approximately, we would have had an extra $3 million in revenue to the bottom line. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As maybe not all Members realize, but, when you ship your goods on MTS, when you sign your bill of lading, there is no guarantee in delivery. That is right on there when you sign it. There is an option for customers to buy insurance, which we highly encourage for damaged goods and stuff.

As Mr. Vandenberg stated, we won't be compensating businesses, That is true. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to make it brief, but one thing I just talked to deputy what I want to do when we come in front of committee next week, I am going to find out exactly how many litres of fuel we delivered to the Arctic communities, and I am going to get a quote of how much it is to truck it to Inuvik to give committee a fair comparison on what it would cost. I think they are going to be pretty shocked.

For my closing comments, I thank all committee members for their questions. I think it is good that we have a public forum here to get this information out to the public. I need to reassure the public...

I think, instead of beating around the bush, I'm going to go right to the crux of this. The capital estimates have been tabled in the House of the Assembly, and I would be glad for the Member to ask me questions. Deliberation around this section of road is what he is referring to, and I think he will be quite happy to see what information comes out of that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try to do the best I can to answer this Member's questions, because this is a very complicated area within the PRA.

One thing we have to make clear on this is we have mirrored the regulations. That was part of devolution and that's what we have right now. That's why it's clearly stated out there as laid out.

We are working on oil, OGOA; I guess we can call it the Oil and Gas Operations Act. That's going forward. We are having a look at it. OROGO is the other side of this issue, which is handled by the Minister of Justice. From my understanding, OROGO is...

BDIC is a valuable contributor to the NWT economy. One of the things that has come up in this Assembly is the BDIC Act. It has a program review written into it every five years, and that's what we're doing right now. We're having a serious look at that. ITI is leading that work along with BDIC and its stakeholders. That work will continue, and I think most Members have a bit of an understanding of it because they have been briefed on it. The terms of reference have been finalized already, and we've shared them with standing committee. It has three main focuses, and they are: they will consider...

As we sit here and deliberate this conversation around the Oil and Gas Act and the regulations, the Member has raised a lot of concerns, and I agree with a number of his concerns. This is not something that we are just going to go out and do at a snap of our fingers. We have a lot of different players in this territory. We have committed to deal with all the Aboriginal and Indigenous governments in this territory, and the public. I am not just going to change the regulation before we change legislation on the Act, and I suspect it will be the way we do our full consultation within the...