Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier has promised to take action to address low employment rates in our small communities with large projects. In Aklavik the employment rate is 36 percent. That is way below the territorial average of 67 percent. There are simply more people who need work than there are jobs. We do have one project that is on our government’s red flag priority list A and that is the all-weather access road to the Willow River gravel source. When will construction begin on this project during the 17th Assembly?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should clarify exactly what I said. As a government we are working to have a development project in every community. In that way we can increase employment and create more jobs in all the communities. So for Aklavik we hadn’t specifically found a project, although we had expected that the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline would fit that bill quite nicely. We have been working with the community on the access to gravel and noting that it is a community responsibility.
Over the years our Department of Transportation has worked in partnership with the Hamlet of Aklavik and the Black Mountain Road Committee to advance this 18.5 kilometre road, which I think is going to cost about $19 million. We’ve been successful in providing $250,000 over two years to the committee to develop a project description report. I think that once we get our fiscal situation and our borrowing limit finalized, I think we’ll be in a much better position to advance this important project.
At this time I don’t have any further questions.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
