Wally Schumann

Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories' Marine Transportation Services delivers essential goods by tug and barge to all marine-accessible communities in the NWT. Residents rely on services to receive such items as fuel, food, and household goods, while commercial customers also require fuel, mobile equipment, and building supplies to support their businesses and provide economic growth for the territory.

Mr. Speaker, Marine Transportation Services launched its second sailing season on June 20th this year from the port of Hay River. For the 2018 sailing season, the delivery of...

To be clear, these caps are addressed in the regulations, and we are dealing with the act. That's what we are dealing with. The Member is talking like we are opening up the NWT to liabilities, and that is not what we are doing. In fact, what we are trying to do is close that loop that exists around suspended wells and clarifying responsibilities that operators in the NWT have. These changes that we are proposing do not change the fact that, in the NWT, when they are at fault, the polluter pays.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I want to update the House a little bit on what I know what is going on today. The tenders have been awarded, and I believe the first flight is going into Paulatuk probably today, hauling fuel, so that process is under way.

As far as Sachs Harbour, the Member e-mailed me asking me about Sachs Harbour for fuel. I have looked into that matter, and Sachs Harbour has significant gasoline in their community, so that isn't an issue.

As far as where we are going to recover the cost of funding this operation, the fuel is going to come out of the POL revolving...

No, this air-lift will not affect future rates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The fuel situation is part of the delay, and tomorrow I'm doing a Minister's statement on the whole issue around this marine, MTS, and the supply and stuff. We will be updating the House there. I am actually going to reach out to committee and ask them if they want a briefing on this whole issue.

The fuel that caused some of the delays this year was not even fuel for us. It was for a customer. It was shipped to Hay River via the railroad, and it did not meet spec when it reached there. Then we are not talking like 5, 10 gallons of fuel here. We are talking about hundreds of millions of litres...

First of all, I answered the question last week, where the Member ended it saying that was an error, and I said that this isn't an error. This is a combination of a whole bunch of factors. When I do my Minister's statement tomorrow, I will clearly lay it out.

There are certainly lessons learned from this thing. I am not saying that the department is not going to learn something from this. Of course, we are going to learn something from this. I think with the announcement that we just did in Hay River around the double-hull barges, it is going to help alleviate some of the situation. I referred...

There is no feasible option at this time besides dredging, so, if we were to consider this, we'd have to go back and go through all the process that I just laid out in the previous question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and we want to take this opportunity to reach out to the greater Northwest Territories to update the general public on the situation that's happening at the Liard ferry. As most people know, this time of year, the rivers drop off sharply. In the case of the Liard River, generally this time of year when it does drop down, it actually comes back up after a couple of days, but that hasn't happened in the last three days. It's actually at its lowest level, and we're probably operating our ferry presently at the lowest level that that ferry has operated; it's at 1.65 meters...

This ain't a million dollar answer because I have answered this question a number of times in the House. The winter operations were due to around the Ikhil well and that situation. I have said in this House many a time that the winter operations weren’t effective. The Dempster was closed 40 per cent of the time during that operation. The reason we did that was to secure energy for the community of Inuvik, and that has been addressed through the contractors. We are not committed to putting any more money into the winter operations of that ferry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm glad to answer this question because this government has done a lot of stuff to help address the cost of living in the Northwest Territories, particularly infrastructure. We have our public highway system. We subsidize ferry operations. We have community airports. All of these things help support the delivery of goods to the communities.

You know, we have to keep our assets in check so we have the efficiency of resupply. Roads are particularly probably the cheapest way to get stuff to communities, depending on where you are. What this government has committed, as the Finance Minister said...