Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Colleagues, I wish to table the official voting results of the general election of the 17th Legislative Assembly held on October 1, 2011. The official voting results are published in accordance with Section 265(1) and (2) of the Elections and Plebiscites Act.
Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 2-17(1), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2012-2013, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair. By the authority given to me as Speaker by Motion 18-17(1), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily hour of adjournment to consider the business before the House, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.
I would like to call Committee of the Whole to order. There is one item before us on our agenda today. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It is the desire of Committee of the Whole to continue with Tabled Document 2-17(1), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2012-2013, for the departments of Transportation; Industry, Tourism and Investment; Environment and Natural Resources; Finance; and the Legislative Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Is the committee agreed?
Agreed.
We will proceed with that after a short break.
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I’ll call Committee of the Whole to order. The first department up for capital estimates is the Department of Transportation. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber. Mr. Ramsay.
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. I’ll ask Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses into our meeting.
I’d like to welcome Mr. Russell Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation to our proceedings this afternoon. We are dealing with detail for the Department of Transportation. If I could direct Members’ attention, please, to page 9-4 of their capital estimates book. Transportation, activity summary, airports, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $1.15 million. Oh, you were going to jump in. Sorry. Okay, I didn’t see anybody’s hand up for general comments. Let me call general comments. Does anyone have any general comments on the Transportation capital budget? Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the Minister and Mr. Neudorf for being here today, talking about Transportation. General comments I have are revolving mostly around the bridge for the next couple of minutes here. Obviously in today’s address the Minister has indicated $10 million more, making the grand total thus far for the bridge at just over $192 million. I guess the concern I have is, and I think the concern that many people in the North have is, is that the cap in terms of what this project is going to cost?
Obviously over the course of the bridge the Minister, former Member, was all too well aware of the issues surrounding costs on the bridge and we’re not going to elaborate there. I guess people need to understand and want some comfort in knowing that the end of the costs with respect to the structure. So I was hoping the Minister could just take a few minutes, or his designate, to maybe reassure the general populous here that we’re not going to be incurring a lot more costs in the structure that’s maybe not seen in this capital presentation. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly appreciate the Member’s question. We didn’t provide a dollar amount during my Minister’s statement earlier today. The amount is to roughly 5 percent of the total project cost.
It is my responsibility and the department’s responsibility to move the project forward with an eye to minimize any further costs associated with the project. There are some issues that may come up that are out of our control, but certainly anything under our control and guidance, like I said, costs are going to be closely looked at, and I can assure the Member that going forward we are going to do our best to minimize any potential financial risks to that project as it moves forward. I’m going to ask Mr. Neudorf if he’s got anything to add to that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Mr. Neudorf.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Minister indicated, we are nearing the completion of the project scheduled to be completed this fall. We are roughly in the last 10 percent of the budget amount. So, much progress has been made. The majority of the material is on site already. They are doing some work right now that is a little bit specialized in installing the cables and constructing the tower. They have to then construct the other tower and cables, and finish launching the truss, and then after that they’re into deck work, which is relatively repetitious and well known to you. So the work that remains, there’s a little bit of risk there, but it is well known and we anticipate that the contractor will be able to make good progress.
We did, as requested or asked, there is additional funding being requested. That’s for the department to continue with the management of the project for the extra year to deal with some of the design changes that have been agreed to already and then to provide us a reasonable contingency for going forward. So we do think that we are covered on the costs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So my understanding here from the delegation is that we’re seeing the usual costs coming forward. Again, I guess I’m hearing a little bit of we’re following due diligence and we’re crossing all of our t’s. Can the delegation or the Minister indicate is there anything on the horizon that residents should be prepared for in terms of additional costs that might be forthcoming?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Looking forward, a potential would be in the area of claims. There are a number of claims both put forward on behalf of the government and the contractor as well. So in a project of this size there’s going to be claims from both sides and there is some potential there, but we’re going to work to ensure that our financial risk in this project is mitigated at every turn, or minimized at every turn. Thank you.
I guess for the sake of the residents of the Territories, we’re also hoping that we’re on budget with no more surprises until the opening of the bridge.
One of the last questions I have for the Minister or Mr. Neudorf is earlier today we talked about tolls and the fact that there would not be a toll at the bridge itself, but there would be a means and ways for calculating tolls for businesses. As most businesses are preparing their future business plans for the 2012 fiscal year, I think a lot of businesses would probably like to have some indication as to what kind of costs may be associated with doing those capital year plans and those common year plans. Can the Minister or Mr. Neudorf indicate exactly ranges in the tolls, and if so, will those tolls being made public for people to start doing those business plans?
Certainly having the Deh Cho Bridge opened will mean I’m not taking calls from local businesspeople when water levels or ice in the river causes the Merv Hardie ferry to be put on the sideline and unavailable. That causes businesses here in Yellowknife and other communities north of that river crossing hardship. It causes consumers hardship. If you even look back to I believe it was two years ago, there was a fuel shortage here in Yellowknife. Just recently there were many bare shelves in stores across Yellowknife. It’s going to be a thing of the past once the bridge is constructed.
There are tolls. They were, actually, in the Deh Cho Bridge Concession Agreement. I believe it was $6 per tonne originally. I think it’s up to $7 now, but Mr. Neudorf can give a little bit more detail on that. But in terms of costs to trucking companies, I believe once you factor in the costs for tolls, the approximate value would be about $250 per B-Train. So I think that’s the number that I’ve learned, but I’ll go to Mr. Neudorf for some more information on the tolls.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Neudorf.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Tolls will be collected remotely so that vehicles, trucks don’t have to stop at the bridge site to actually pay a toll, and that creates a much more efficient operation. We’re going to use the existing system that we have of collecting payments around permits and those kind of things that are already required for the trucking industry, and then we’re also going to set up some opportunity for trucking companies to pay once a month, do monthly reports. So it should be relatively painless for them.
We actually took the $6 per tonne prorate, and we’re going to convert it into a configuration and we’re going to charge based on truck configuration. So a straight truck, a two or three axel straight truck will be charged $75 northbound, five axel and six axel semi-trailer would be charged $150, and a B-Train or a train vehicle would be charged $275.
So we have talked to the trucking industry about those toll rates and they are well aware of it. We had a series of meetings this fall with them. They are prepared. They like the system that we have in place and are looking forward to the efficiencies that the bridge is going to gain in their operations. Thank you.
Thank you. Anything further, Mr. Dolynny?
Thank you, Madam Chair. No more further questions.
Thank you. For general comments I have Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Bromley. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My comments would reflect around the Mackenzie Valley winter road, and the airports in my community, and some of the support equipment that needs to be looked at within the Department of Transportation to support the operations of our small airports and our winter road.
I want to thank the department at this time for their flexibility and support in the construction, the final steps of the Colville Lake new airport. The people there are very happy that the department was opening up to have most of the people and their equipment in Colville Lake working on the airport. It does a lot of good when you see high employment in Colville Lake. Actually, they had a pretty good crew there. They’re very open. I want to ask the Minister when they put together infrastructure such as the one like Colville Lake, they also need to put in support infrastructure such as the terminal. Right now you go to Colville Lake, you land at the airport, and there’s no place to walk into. It’s just right open. You have very good scenery, but it’s cold. I’m hoping that the Colville Lake Airport will look at a shelter but also someplace where they would park their equipment, like a garage at their terminal for their equipment.
I spoke about Deline’s need for a snow blower. I will continue to raise it until Deline does see a snow blower at that community. I understand that today they are contracting a grader to do the runway. The graders are fine. The graders also do damage to the runways. They have been looking for a snow blower for some time with the amount of usage of that airport, so I’m going to continue to push for that community to look at a time when they can get a snow blower.
One of the things that the community of Deline have asked for in airports is the extension of that runway. I know it was extended. They want to land larger aircraft and I believe that Deline will be busy in the future. They are willing to work with the department. I wanted to say that the department’s not new to this initiative. They have made some concessions where the previous extension on the runway was supported through Deline through the gravelling material. They are looking for a runway extension in Deline.
The highways in the Mackenzie Valley winter road, as the Minister and the previous Minister have noted, a number of bridges have been put in to support the Mackenzie Valley Highway. However, there is a bridge in the Norman Wells section between Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope and the department’s well aware of the bridge. It’s at Oscar Creek and has been sitting there for a bit. It’s out of alignment. It causes some hiccups and difficulties for the department, this bridge here. It’s quite a scene when you drive on the winter road and come around a corner and you see a bridge sitting there all by itself not being used, and you kind of wonder what the heck’s going on here, why this bridge is not being used. There are a lot of stories around Norman Wells about this bridge. I look forward to when the government can put this bridge into use and get it in service.
There were two bridges that we were working on last year. The Prohibition Creek Bridge and the Four Mile Creek Bridge. I look forward to the Minister’s response on updates as to when those bridges will be fixed and in use.
The big one I want to talk about is the Bear River Bridge. This is the key infrastructure, especially now that the oil and gas companies have expressed interest in the Tulita/Norman Wells area for oil and gas exploration. This bridge here will be a support to exploration, opening winter roads quicker, not putting people’s lives in jeopardy by continuing to use the winter ice road. Climate change, as my colleague Mr. Bromley has talked lots about, the impacts of climate change we are now seeing the effects on our winter road. The Bear River Bridge is something that I continue to support and the people in the Sahtu support to have that bridge up and on the books so that we can start to put that infrastructure in place.
I also look to the department on bringing types of infrastructure to our airports in Tulita for a garage. We have an old garage that right now I believe is contracted to the hamlet for the winter upgrades. They have the old federal government garages that now belong to the Hamlet of Tulita, no different than the garages that were used at the Yellowknife Airport. Now they have a brand new garage up at the Yellowknife Airport. We need that type of support also in our smaller communities.
I look for those types of updates. The Minister is pretty busy with all the other projects going on. However, these are the needs of the Sahtu people. I look forward to a discussion on the additional dollars that the Minister will be seeking for the Deh Cho Bridge and I look forward to some of his responses to my questions specifically on the Deh Cho Bridge.
I wanted to say these are my comments on the Department of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank Mr. Yakeleya for bringing the concerns from the Sahtu forward. I made a list. I’ll try to go through them, Mr. Yakeleya, and if I miss anything, perhaps Mr. Neudorf can fill in the gaps if I missed a comment of yours.
Going back to the beginning with Colville Lake, we are committed to working with the community there in Colville Lake to get a passenger shelter up and running. I know the new airport is a little further away so that’s important that that happen. In terms of a garage or a structure being built for equipment, and I guess the same answer would apply to Tulita, DOT contracts the equipment from the community. It’s community equipment and they would have to look at housing that equipment. We haven’t got any plans currently to build a garage at either Colville Lake or Tulita.
The next issue the Member had was runway extensions in Deline. Going back to a 2007 study, I had indicated that the runway length in the community of Deline was adequate. Again, we’re committed to continue to work with the communities in the Sahtu and if there are proposals put forward – I believe we did an extension in Fort Good Hope where the community was involved in that extension – then that’s something we could take under consideration as well.
The Member also spoke about the Oscar Creek Bridge. There’s currently a study underway to engage engineers to see what the best utilization of that bridge could be. We’re looking forward to at some point in time utilizing that piece of infrastructure that’s there at Oscar Creek.
I think that covered the issues the Member had. Oh, the snow blower. The issue the Member had with the snow blower. Currently we deploy graders at the airport. A grader is multifunctional, as Members know, whereas a snow blower is an expensive piece of equipment that is one dimensional; it blows snow. So having graders there and the functionality of the graders is a better fit for the department.
Also the Bear River Bridge. I know this is a topic that’s of great interest to the Member and to the people of Tulita and the Sahtu. Obviously we’re going to be challenged with funding to carry out the work that we would like to see completed. I think going forward, with the level of activity in the Sahtu region, what is going to be happening there in the next few years in terms of seismic work and drilling programs, I think there will be more of an emphasis to get key pieces of infrastructure like the Bear River Bridge put into place. Obviously the completion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway is something that’s very important and the Bear River Bridge is a key piece of the completion of that highway project.
I certainly look forward to working with the Member over the coming years to ensure that the Sahtu region has their concerns answered.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Anything further, Mr. Yakeleya?
Not at this time, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. General comments. Next I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll speak briefly to a number of issues. The first one I want to mention is, as the Minister well knows, I don’t see the Detah road on here and my constituents have a high degree of interest in doing something on that front. They’re in mid-project right now doing some great work, and it has provided real benefits to the community with employment, and keeping people at home and developing the Deton’Cho Corporation and their capacity. So there’s quite a number of features. It’s a partnership with the Mine Training Society and so on. I know the Minister is supportive of the project, so I will be looking for opportunities to advance this as it has been in the past with opportunistic funding.
Also, of course, the Giant bypass road. I’m curious; I don’t see that in the capital plan here. I understand that’s coming from a separate fund. I’d appreciate information from the Minister on how the committee is to provide the oversight and accountability for that project through the oversight of Regular Members if it’s not really in the books. I’d appreciate learning some more on the process of that.
Certainly on the Deh Cho Bridge the Minister was thorough in outlining some of the risks identified. I know that he again is very aware that these risks are real. Many of them have been realized along the road. So far the path has been rocky. There’s no question that other risks will be realized. I’m asking that the Minister stay very much on top of that and keep us informed, as I believe he has indicated he will be doing.
Climate change has been mentioned. I’m wondering what systematic protocols are in place for us to capture the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on our infrastructure so that we can be knowledgeable about what we’re doing. I know we’ve been contemplating research. Maybe we’ve been doing a little bit of research for years, passing the money on from year to year, but there’s a lot of things happening with a suite of infrastructure, many of them accumulating to highways and airports, so I’d want to know what actual protocols are in place for capturing those, so that we can be learning as we go.
The Tuk highway, I don’t think we want to move forward unless we have a cost-benefit analysis of this project that indicates it’s well worthwhile. So, I’d like the Minister to assure us that that work is being done or will be done, before we start throwing great amounts of money at the project. Also, a greenhouse gas emissions mitigation plan be developed for the project so that there is a net zero increase in emissions at a time when we are, of course, trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Northwest Territories.
The Highway No. 7, I know in the absence of my colleague, Mr. Menicoche, not being here, we heard last week plus 14 degree temperatures there. We can be guaranteed that there will be kerfuffles for that highway. It’s a challenging highway, I understand, and it needs some sort of comprehensive response. Undoubtedly, it will be very expensive, but I just want to put a plug in to make sure that at least some planning and ongoing diligence is put into how we’re going to resolve that situation in the long term.
Finally, again keeping my remarks brief, Highway No. 4, as the department has documented, is the worst highway in the Northwest Territories and it’s also got very high volumes, so I’m very supportive in seeing that project go forward and hopefully we’ll achieve completion on that soon. I’m always, of course, interested in opportunities for helping on our efficiency in delivering projects like the Detah road completion and the Giant Mine bypass as well, which would be associated with that project.
Remarks from the Minister would be appreciated on those topics. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. Obviously the Detah access road is an important item for the Member and we have provided, I believe, a $6 million program there. There are more needs for that road. We’ve got about I believe it’s between $500,000 and $700,000, and a little bit of carry-over for about a half-kilometre of work that’s left on that road. But going forward, I think, again, funding and finding sources of funding to carry out the remaining portions of work on the Detah access road is going to be something that’s important and we will need to find other opportunities to get more funding to address the concerns on that road.
The Member talked about the Highway No. 4 realignment. Certainly that’s a project that has been around for a little while. It’s a $17 million project. The money is coming from the Giant Mine Remediation Fund that the Government of the Northwest Territories had a $23 million liability there. We’re taking $17 million from that. The oversight will be provided by both AANDC and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Members can expect, like with other projects, to be updated on the progress of that project as it moves forward. There’s a very ambitious timeline on the realignment. We’re looking at proceeding to work here in the new year and have that realignment completed by the fall of 2012, with a final surfacing added in 2013, once the road settles. The Member can look forward to that project this coming year.
The Member also talked about risks associated with the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Again, from an oversight perspective, as the Minister of Transportation I take very seriously the project and the oversight of that project now rests with me. I’m certainly keeping a watchful eye on the progress of the Deh Cho Bridge. My goal is to keep Members adequately informed at every step. Tomorrow we’re going forward with a technical briefing to the media on the project and earlier today I sent out an e-mail to all Members advising them of that taking place, and also providing them with the information so that Members get the information first. I think that’s important that Members are kept apprised of what’s happening with that project. As we move forward, we’re moving towards the completion of the Deh Cho Bridge in the fall of next year, so we’re going to try to manage it the best that we can and to the best of our ability and will be keeping Members informed.
The Member also talked about climate change and its impact on our transportation infrastructure here in the Northwest Territories. Currently we’ve got I believe it’s $1.85 million through the Building Canada Plan to see how we can effectively deal with the impact that climate change is having on the infrastructure here in the Northwest Territories. We’re looking to projects and research that are going to help us as we move forward to better address the issues of climate change.
The Member also asked about a cost-benefit analysis on the Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik highway. Currently there’s an economic analysis that has been conducted on that stretch of highway and that can be found on the Department of Transportation’s website for any Members that are interested in seeing it and the work that was done there. We are going to continue to pursue that project and try to move it forward. We do have the $150 million commitment from the federal government for the Tuk-Inuvik highway and there are a number of compelling reasons why the project should be advanced.
I believe we are working, as well, on the greenhouse gas and emissions. I thank the Member for raising that concern with us again today, and look forward to getting back to committee and perhaps getting some further insight from the Member on plans as we move them forward. Any help the Member can provide or input the Member can provide to us as we move those plans forward would be greatly appreciated, Madam Chair.
Finally, I believe Highway No. 7, and I wanted to just touch on this, obviously that is in need of a tremendous amount of funding. We’re looking at, just to keep things moving along, a $3 million a year program for 10 years, so $30 million. Again, our funding is just not conducive to allowing us to do everything we need to do or want to do, so we are going to have to move forward trying to find a way and a means to address the concerns on Highway No. 7. We do have a little bit of a carry-over from last year for Highway No. 7. It’s about $1.6 million. We’re hoping that that’s going to be just enough if there are some issues to address in the spring. But we need a long-term solution to Highway No. 7 and a lot of money to do it. Thank you.
I had asked specifically what systematic protocols are in place to capture the impacts of climate change on our infrastructure so that we can build our knowledge on that. I understand that we do have research dollars that we haven’t spent for many years that we keep forwarding on to future years, and I’m looking forward to some research eventually being done. I appreciate that information, but right now I’m asking what systematic protocols do we have? We have a lot of workers out there. We have a lot of assessments of our infrastructure, I am sure, that we need to do in order to do maintenance and so on. I would really like a response on that one. If we don’t have one, what can we do to get one in place?
On the greenhouse gas emissions mitigation for the Tuk highway, that is the responsibility of this Minister. I would be glad to help him. I am looking forward to his plan on that. When can we expect the plan on that on which I can comment and help him out? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Neudorf.
Thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of climate change, the departments, of course, have been dealing with a changing climate for the last 20 years or so. We have modified, adapted our activities in quite a number of different areas, both on the maintenance side of things where we are using more sand, salt to deal with more freezing, thawing conditions. We have adjusted our maintenance efforts, the work schedule of our equipment operators to cut and have more hours covered in a week. So quite a few changes on that side as the challenges have arisen and we have seen the need and we have brought those needs forward to the government. We have been able to adapt to the climate on an O and M perspective.
On the infrastructure side of things, there has been a lot of research around permafrost, and changes in permafrost and best practices in permafrost. DOT has participated in those and we do take all that work and use it to help us manage our infrastructure, and as we are doing design, work related to upgrading an infrastructure, then we may consider those protocols and the issues that are brought forward there.
In terms of specific work underway right now, we recently completed a vulnerability assessment on Highway No. 3 that follow the protocol of the Engineering Association of Canada, and to do that work we, of course, are doing lots of work around Inuvik-Tuk road, and considering climate change and collecting baseline information around that at the present time to ensure that those impacts are fully considered as we design that road and move forward with construction. We did have consultants hired right now to prepare a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the department. The one area that we do need to do a little bit more risk assessment on is in the marine infrastructure, so that is a specific part of that and then we will be doing some more consultations within the department and with some of our other stakeholders and work on preparing the full departmental Climate Change Adaptation Plan. That will bring together all of the previous research and efforts that the department has done directly itself, and then it has been involved with at the national level a number of other work.
The one additional area that we do hope to get to in the next year or two is we still implement the BCP R and D funding to develop work on a runway vulnerability protocol as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to answer the Member’s last concern that was with the Tuk-Inuvik highway and how we might mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions on that project, that is going to be, I believe, a difficult task. I think we are going to have to, and it is going to be intensive over a short period of time where the construction of that highway would take place. There is going to be a lot of equipment used. Personally I want to ensure that the benefits accrue to local contractors and businesses in the Northwest Territories who may not have the latest emission standards or equipment that might meet what some southern companies might have. I think we have to balance everything off when looking at that to ensure that the work can go to northern companies so that capacity is built here in the Northwest Territories. I would be interested in, again, hearing ways in which the Member and other Members of this House feel that we might be able to mitigate greenhouse gas on a project like the Tuk-Inuvik highway. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bromley.
I appreciate the comments from the Minister and his deputy minister here. I guess I would like to take the Minister up on that offer and ask if he will commit to bringing this subject to committee with their best efforts. I will urge committee to do our best efforts to come up with ways. There are a number of ways that come to mind immediately. Ultimately, of course, we could purchase offsets so that there is no net increase, but I think we could do a little better.
The Minister mentioned balancing and so on. That is what I am talking about here. If we just allow this to continue to increase, I am sure, and the Minister knows what the future will hold for our people. I appreciate his willingness to pursue this and I look forward to that exercise. Mahsi.
Madam Chair, I thank the Member for that. Certainly options and different ideas all come with a price tag. Like I said earlier, we are going to be really challenged fiscally to deliver on the projects that we have in front of us. We are going to be looking for money anywhere we can find it. Again, I think, when we are discussing mitigating opportunities on greenhouse gas on a project like the Tuk-Inuvik highway, we need to ensure that we are taking everything into consideration. I think that can happen. Again, I thank the Member for that. I look forward to further discussions on this as we move forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. General comments. Department of Transportation. Detail. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I asked a question earlier, the access road to Willow River. I see it in the 20-year plan that is actually within the first five years. I would just like to get reassurance from if the Minister that it will be in the plans for the next four years. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Ramsay.
Madam Chair, again, I thank the Member for raising the concern on the road to Willow River and the gravel source outside of Aklavik. It is in the 20-year needs assessment but I believe there is always, as we move forward – we talked about this before – there is going to be a number of competing projects for those capital dollars.
Obviously this is an issue that is important to the Member, so getting the support of other Members is helpful, and continue to talk about the project and its importance to the people of Aklavik and the Mackenzie Delta is something I look forward to the Member doing.
It wasn’t that long ago where I was speaking of the Kam Lake bypass road here in Yellowknife. As a Regular Member, I probably stood up in this House about seven or eight times, at least, talking about the advantages of having that bypass road put into the city of Yellowknife from the highway into Kam Lake Industrial Park. Again, I would encourage the Member to continue to talk about the project and its importance. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Any further general comments on the Department of Transportation capital budget? Mr. Yakeleya.
