Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the Minister of Transportation. We heard lately about the extra – if anyone hasn’t been paying attention – $10 million that will be required by this government to complete the bridge for its, I can’t remember how many times completion, but to allegedly complete the bridge on a date in the future. Can the Minister indicate to us when we would expect to see these so-called extra crews on site to do all this extra work? They were talking about working around the clock, two shifts, 24 hours per day. Can the Minister indicate when this will happen?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That has been the case on the project for the past two weeks. We’ve been two crews working 20 hours a day and when concrete begins to be poured here shortly, that will increase, undoubtedly, to 24 hours a day construction on that project.
That’s good to hear that we’re moving on that project as we were promised. Anyone who works with paving clearly understands that paving requires a certain temperature for pavers to go and actually do the road and it has to be warm enough to do that road. Can the Minister indicate to the House here when is the last possible date, not predicting weather, but there’s a window of time when paving has to be done and it has to be done in temperature. Can we get some sense of when paving should be completed by to visualize this project going forward?
There are various options that could come into play. It could be paved in sections as it’s complete. If it doesn’t happen that way, it will happen in September, weather permitting. There’s always cold surfacing that could happen. There’s technology out there now that would allow it to be done in colder weather. Optimum conditions and our expectation is that would be done by mid-September.
That’s good. I’m glad to hear we have some plans happening and plan B. The next question has to do with our plan B process. If by chance – and I’m trying not to be hypothetical in the question, I’m trying to be forthright here – the date of the opening of this bridge is not completed, does the government have a plan B in place for this?
That very much is a hypothetical question. Our expectation is the bridge will be open this coming November. I thank the Member for his question but it is a hypothetical question.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe it was hypothetical. Anyone in construction or building has plans Bs and Cs just to make sure we have contingency plans. That said, I will be asking that question, I’m sure, later on in the Assembly.
Can the Minister be a bit more clairvoyant as to which date the government is proposing that this bridge be built and open for public? Hansards have a couple dates in there. We’ve seen the 24th. I’ve heard the 26th. Can the Minister be a bit more clear as to the AIP, this new agreement, which date is circled on the calendar for people to be excited about?
Our expectation is that could happen sometime in November. To be on the safe side, I would say the last week of November.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
