Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table a press release, entitled “New Study Demonstrates Alberta Failing to Enforce Environmental Legislation,” which includes highlights from the report Environmental Incidents in Northeastern Alberta’s Bitumen Sands Region, 1996-2012.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use this occasion to table the press release put out by the Mackenzie Valley Review Board, and at the same time, I have the compendium document, which is what they publicize with this, which is board member honoraria policy that, although confusing, does in some ways spell out what they pay their chair and the board members.
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, March 5, 2014, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment be required to ensure that there is at least one fully trained early childhood educator worker for every junior kindergarten group before the program is implemented; and further, that early childhood education workers be recognized as educational professionals and paid wages accordingly; and furthermore, that Aurora College immediately implements a training program that graduates fully qualified early childhood education workers who meet federal standards; and furthermore, that the Government of the Northwest Territories provides a comprehensive response to this motion within 90 days.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, March 5, 2014, I will move that Bill 15, Oil and Gas Operations Act; Bill 16, Northwest Territories Intergovernmental Agreement on Lands and Resources Management Act; and Bill 17, Northwest Territories Intergovernmental Agreement on Resource Revenue Sharing Agreement Act, be read for the first time.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife Great Slave, that Bill 13, Devolution Measures Act, be read for the second time.
This bill amends various statutes in order to give effect to the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.
Question.
Question has been called. Bill 13 has had second reading and is referred to committee.
---Carried
Mr. Premier.
Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to waive Rule 69(2) and have Bill 13, Devolution Measures Act, moved into Committee of the Whole.
---Consent granted
Mr. Premier.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 14, Waters Act, be read for the second time.
This bill substantially mirrors the Northwest Territories Waters Act of Canada in accordance with the requirements of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.
Question.
Question has been called. Bill 14 has had second reading and is referred to committee.
---Carried
Mr. Premier.
Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to waive Rule 69(2) and have Bill 14, Waters Act, moved into Committee of the Whole.
---Consent granted
By the authority given to me as the Speaker, by Motion 10-17(5), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond its daily hour of adjournment to consider business before the House.
Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order this afternoon. What is the wish of the committee today? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We wish to continue with Tabled Document 22-17(5). We started Transportation. We would like to continue with Transportation, then Municipal and Community Affairs and then Lands, in that order.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. We will commence after a brief break.
---SHORT RECESS
I’m going to call Committee of the Whole to order. When we left off on Thursday, we were on the Department of Transportation, general comments. At this time, I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber. Mr. Beaulieu.
Yes, Madam Chair, I would.
Thank you. Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Agreed. Thank you. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses to the table.
Mr. Minister, for the record, would you please introduce your witnesses again for the record.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To my left is Russell Neudorf, deputy minister, Transportation; and to my right is assistant deputy minister of Transportation, Daniel Auger.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. So, we had left off on general comments. I believe Mr. Yakeleya was not finished on Thursday, so I will go to Mr. Yakeleya first.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a good weekend to think about what I said and I will tone it down here.
I do want to conclude my opening comments to the Minister, the department and the government. I would ask them if they would seriously consider the issue of decentralization with regard to looking at the regional offices in the Sahtu with the decision-making type of authorities by our superintendents being in this position for 10 years. I thought by now that the government would start seriously considering putting in our own superintendents for airports and highways in the Sahtu region.
I have had a number of e-mails and correspondence over 10 years, reasons why they aren’t able to do it yet. I want to make a play for it on behalf of the Sahtu people.
I have notes from one of my road trips, questions asked by Sahtu people why there isn’t yet a regional office. We certainly could take advantage of what’s happening there now and if we wait for the Mackenzie Valley Highway, it will be a while yet because of the amount of work that is required. We have come to a place where they are doing some work up in Inuvik.
I would ask if they would look at a plan, bring it to the House to look at how they could bring a regional office into the Sahtu for airports and highways.
Madam Chair, the winter roads have been quite busy this year. The support I’m going to lend to this Minister for Corridors for Canada and moving that proposal with the federal government, I’d like to hear where that’s out and where the projects in the proposal are being considered for support from the territorial government. I will ask again to look at the Bear River Bridge and bring that up, so we can take advantage of it.
I’m very glad that the department has produced a booklet for the drivers in the Sahtu, more importantly for the truck drivers in the Sahtu, so they know more about the Sahtu.
The oil companies have given close to $400,000 to help with the winter roads. Last weekend I want onto the Conoco lease and the Husky lease. Certainly, by talking to the construction foreman, they have given me an indication of what type of dollars have gone into their roads. It’s a huge difference what dollars go into their roads compared to our winter roads in the Northwest Territories. There really is no comparison. Safety is their highest priority in the oil and gas industry. I believe that’s also with the winter roads we have in the communities. Maintaining the roads and putting the proper signs and cutting down the errors that are dangerous in our Sahtu winter roads are a must, and I think the Minister has begun to do that already.
I do want to say we appreciate the additional support we are going to have in our winter roads for the amount of traffic that is now coming into the communities on the winter roads. Between Tulita and Norman Wells, where I drove this past weekend, there are quite big trucks on the roads there. I would certainly like to see more maintenance on the roads. They are taking out the potholes. Driving from Norman Wells to Tulita is about 84 kilometres. The shape the roads were in, if those roads were like that between here and Behchoko, you would automatically see a lot of transportation trucks and contractors out spooning off those roads. I don’t think our roads should be treated any different. We can also put a lot of water trucks out there.
The last point I want to make before concluding is there’s a great need for this Minister to work with Education, Culture and Employment to bring Class 5 training into the communities in the Sahtu. I’m working with the Department of Education council. We have a lot of young people in Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, Deline, Tulita and Norman Wells that certainly could benefit from a Class 5 training program in the schools. A lot of them have been told that they could work, and want to work, but yet they fall short of having a Class 5 driver’s licence. That hinders them; that limits them to getting other jobs. So I would look forward to this Minister in this budget helping our communities out to work with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to get Class 5 training programs in our small communities. Like I said earlier, there are close to 500 youth – that’s 2012 stats – that are aged between 15 and 24 years of age and they’re ready to get on with life and get some training in oil and gas, or traditional economy, or with government. A lot of them would benefit greatly by having a Class 5 training program and what better place to do it than in our educational institutions to motivate the youth so that they can know that the training is available to them. Go to school, gain self-confidence, self-esteem and know that their Class 5 training could possibly help them with their educational diploma program.
So that’s something specifically I’m looking to this Minister for, to work with the Education Minister to see if this is a possibility of bringing in an educational drivers’ training program. That’s all I have to say, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. General comments, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of general comments here. I’d like to initially start off and say that the department has done a good job in enhancing the services to residents through the on-line services, which started fairly recently. I was able to re-register my vehicle and did it on a Sunday morning, having a cup of coffee – it was grand – and then received the blank sticker in the mail, I don’t know, a week or so ago and I haven’t put it on yet, but minus 30 is not great for putting them on.
So I hope that the department will take the success of vehicle registration and expand. They were talking about expanding on-line services, so I hope that it will happen sooner rather than later. This latest one seems to be fairly successful, so that’s all good.
I do want to express my concern still about the Inuvik-Tuk highway and the costs for that particular project. We keep getting little bits of the project that are sort of coming to us after the fact. I know we’ve had a contract initially that is over with and now we have a second contract, but then we’ve also got costs for the royalties and for the gravel. So I guess I’m just again expressing my concern about the fact that this project is very similar to one we had a number of years ago and I’m extremely hesitant that we are actually going to make this project on budget and on schedule. On schedule is probably a heck of a lot easier to make than on budget. So, basically, just a concern that I want to express there.
I did raise it in the House, but I want to mention it again. I’m quite disappointed that the department has not yet done a post-mortem on the Deh Cho Bridge. That whole project from beginning to end was fraught with difficulties and certainly processes which we don’t want to repeat. The Minister has advised me that yes, that’s going to be done, but I think the timing was something like before the end of the 17th Assembly and that’s an awful long time from when the project itself was finished. So I would encourage the Minister to finish it an awful lot sooner.
Other than that, I don’t have anything else to add. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. General comments. Next I have Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few comments on the department. I guess one of the hot button items that I just brought up today was the winter road maintenance and some of the early closures of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I guess I am concerned in the fact that I’m hearing from different people in the industry and in the area that road maintenance is being shut down and companies are told that they don’t have a cycle left. Some companies only have one cycle left. I guess my concern in that area is, you know, I equate it to firefighting and we tend to have cost overruns in that on an annual basis. We budget a certain amount, but how we can predict what road maintenance is going to be required in certain areas? I don’t quite understand how we can predict the weather in those areas.
I know, for example, Tuktoyaktuk gets blown in lots and they may have to actually dig out the road five or six times a year, but what happens if it’s 12 or 13 times a year? I’m sure the contractor comes back to us and says, well, it has been extreme weather this season. In this example, the season has been longer. Can they come back to us for additional funds?
For the maintenance side of it, I would think we’d want to maintain as much as we can to keep that road open all the time and as long as we can. As I’ve indicated, the industry is putting money into this area, as well, so they can keep the road open, get it opened earlier. So, I mean, I’m sure they’re interested in keeping the road open longer as well. I guess it’s just how we communicate that with people. The concern was that the temperature is not really dropping, but yet they were talking about restrictions on the road already and the temperatures really haven’t dropped. I’m sure the Minister and the department know well the concerns already.
The other area of concern that I brought to the department recently was the permitting process for the trucking industry to get over-width and overweight permits seem to be taking longer and longer and I’m not sure what has changed in that process. I was getting compliments on the department’s process, the 1-800 24/7 number seemed to be working this summer. But over the last couple of months I’ve been getting more concerns that it’s taking upwards of two or three hours to get a permit to move equipment or to get through an area, so I’m just wondering what has changed that process.
Ms. Bisaro talked about the on-line services and I’m just wondering if there’s a possibility that we add that to the service so that we can go on-line, a company would be able to log on on-line, tell them the dimensions of the unit that they’re travelling with and basically get approval that way. Along those lines, I was asking questions about that contract, it’s a southern contract right now. How much longer is left on that contract and when will we be able to look at that contract being supplied in the North?
Ms. Bisaro talked about getting her sticker and I registered my vehicle on-line and still haven’t received my white sticker. I’m not sure what happened there. Yellowknife MLAs, I guess, get a little preference.
The other issue that I want to dredge up is, obviously, I was talking about dredging last week, and I know the department has some people that are dealing with dredging on a consistent basis and I’d like to see us do some sort of assessment of what it’s going to cost to complete dredging in the Hay River area. I know it’s a federal responsibility, but it’s also territorial. It’s a shipping and transportation issue. So, I mean, if we can do this internally to do some cost estimates of what it’s going to be when the federal programs and the Minister responsible for Emergency Measures basically indicated there’s some mitigation stuff there, but I think it’s Transportation’s responsibility, as well, when we look into the cost of what it’s going to take to do this project. Is it a $1 million project? Is it a $12 million project? I don’t think the department really clearly knows and we would like to know those numbers, those estimates.
Another area of concern we’re hearing in the Hay River area is we have a maintenance garage in that area. It seems like that maintenance garage is losing a little bit of traction to a Yellowknife operation here and it seems like where most of that maintenance was being done out of Hay River is now being split between Hay River and Yellowknife, and I’m not sure when that mandate has changed, I guess, as far as creating a second maintenance area for that type of facility. I’d like to know when the department decided that it was going to have two maintenance garages as opposed to just one. The maintenance guys from the Hay River area come up here and they say, well, man, they’ve got new equipment and new everything there, and we’re struggling to get a bunch of the facilities upgraded in the Hay River area. I guess our concern is, obviously, with talking about decentralization, and again, it seems like there’s almost a centralization in that department in the maintenance area of it.
Another area of concern and, I guess, appreciation is they repaired the Hay River airport, and it’s great that we fixed that bump in the runway, but I guess my question would be when do we expect to do an overall assessment of the runways and what it’s going to take, because right now we know that there’s going to be additional expenditures in that area to fix it up probably in another four or five years. I’m just wondering if the department has put that money in there. I couldn’t quite find it myself, but if there’s any money in to study the Hay River airport as far as runway conditions in the future maintenance requirements there.
One of my final comments is truck regulations. I’ve talked about it several times in the House here about, obviously the tri-drive. We’re trying the experimental couple years’ process, and I’d like to get some update on where that’s at, what kind of initial results are we getting. As well as the truck regulations that I’ve talked about is the fact that we have pickups pulling a trailer and now we’re over the weight limit of the 4,500 kilograms, and then having to pay bridge tolls as well as having to have a Class 3 driver’s licence to run those types of equipment, where other jurisdictions like Alberta don’t have those requirements. I want a little bit more consistency and I’m wondering if the department has any more on that, keeping regulations consistent, finding that in Alberta a pickup is a pickup is a pickup. It doesn’t matter what it’s pulling. I understand some of the trailers that are being pulled are extreme, but any kind of half-ton pulling a trailer now, you’re over your 4,500 kilograms, making it very difficult for small contractors that have labourers only that are running this equipment, to run up and down to fix and service some of the communities in my area, and running into this difficulty of having to have a Class 3 driver’s licence now basically limits them. They need a talent pool, and most people that can acquire a Class 3 driver’s licence are probably using it to their best ability to run a big gravel truck or whatever in any industry or mining industry, so it’s a difficulty for the labour pool as well. I’d like the department to continue to try to figure out some of those hiccups in our regulation process when we compare them to other jurisdictions.
That’s all my comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. General comments. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You’re probably going to hear a number of similar comments that have already been echoed by some of colleagues, so I’ll go in really no particular order here.
First and foremost, I think the Inuvik-Tuk highway did pose a bit of concern for a number of Members, especially under the royalty of granular, and I strongly encourage the department to be a bit more transparent as we move forward on the process to make sure that that whole process is clearly stated for the record. We know that this is the first of many segments of this road to be constructed and I think it’s imperative and paramount that that standard is clearly displayed by the department on how granular royalties came about. We’ve got a number of other land claim groups that are going to be part of the overall Mackenzie Valley Highway system, and I think we need to be very consistent as we move forward. But I think the department has an obligation and I think they could have done a little bit better job in preparing committee and the public with respect to what this royalty program is, how it’s being set up and how it’s being implemented.
The issue of the Deh Cho Bridge has come up a couple times here in general comments and I just want to echo more of some of the facts around it. We know that according to the public accounts being tabled of March 31, 2013, that there was a $600,000 shortfall in the collection of the toll, which begs to ask when – and I think I asked this in the House – are we going to do an audit on our toll system? I believe it’s warranted. When you see a shortfall of that magnitude, one does have to ask why. What happened to the traffic? If the traffic flow was reasonable, why would it not be to our advantage to get very close to the numbers of predictability, which obviously we did not do.
We also have the issue of, I think, we have an opportunity here with the Deh Cho Bridge to finally look at a rear-view mirror approach to our toll system in general. I think you’ve heard Mr. Bouchard, who brought up some of the regulations regarding a lot of people with commercial plates who are over their limit. In a lot of cases, these Yellowknife Members or any Northwest Territories resident who has a commercial small truck that is a half-ton or three-quarter ton pulling even such things as a holiday trailer or a fifth-wheel for their family is not exempt from the regulations, which I think is wrong. We know very well that we have a number of businesses out there – a lot of them are in my riding of Range Lake – who use their commercial truck for pulling things such as their travel trailer if they’re going down to Hay River to go fishing for the weekend, and they’re over their limit if they’re pulling a trailer or a very large boat. We know that that’s more of a taxation question that they’ve got to deal with their personal taxes and their business, but I don’t believe that we should be getting in the way of business by having a regulation that imposes the personal use of, I think, commercial vehicles with commercial plates. I’m asking this department to do a thorough review on that specific policy as it has come up a number of times in my riding, and I know others have brought that up as well.
I also believe that if we’re on the subject of the Deh Cho Bridge, the department has said in the past that they were going to do a retrospective analysis within six months of its completion. Well, we’re well beyond six months now of that completion date and yet we still have not seen a retrospective analysis, and those are the words of the previous Minister as well. I’m asking this department when will this analysis take place, what is the depth of this analysis, what is the mandate, what are the terms of reference, and what should we expect by doing that? I think if doing it just to regurgitate what the Auditor General did a few years ago, really, in essence, would be a waste of everybody’s time.
That said, we do have a small amount of residual money left for the Deh Cho Bridge, and I think this is an opportunity for the department to be very transparent, what this amount of money that’s left in the fund, how it’s going to be used for the deficiencies, and whether or not there’s going to be a shortfall for the number of deficiencies that are left with the bridge. We are all aware that we were left with a taillight warranty with this bridge and now the taxpayers are going to be involved picking up the tab.
You heard, possibly from Members in the past, that we are patiently waiting for the completion of the transportation plan, but more importantly, the overall Highway Strategy. This has been something that has been talked about for a number of years now, ever since I started as a Member of the 17th Assembly. But I think with the Corridors for Canada III, that potential money that’s sitting on our doorstep without a plan, it makes one think, what exactly is the overall ideology of the department moving forward? I strongly encourage that the department bring that plan through proper public consultation and through a vetting process of committee so that we can have that high level discussion before these Corridors for Canada III monies start to trickle in. As you are well aware, these are matching dollars, so I know the department is going to have to come to this side of the House to appropriate monies to match this Corridors money that we’re going to be getting from the feds.
I’m hoping my next topic has the ears of the Finance Minister and the Finance department, because he’s always asking for ways to make money. I think there’s a beautiful way we can make money, and I think our airports are possibly the key for making that money. There are a number of our airports that are very high use and are actually quite extensively used by many different airlines and many different residents. I’m talking about your Inuvik, Norman Wells, you have your Yellowknife and you have your Hay River, just mentioning a couple of these higher use airports. If you look down south, a lot of jurisdictions in Canada have looked at privatization of their airports. They’ve actually liquidated their assets and leveraged their assets because the governments of the day running airports couldn’t do a good enough job. It was costing the taxpayer way too much money. By them privatizing them, they actually had a lift. In that first year they made the money from their capitalization of projects and they were able to leverage their airports for profit.
We struggle, as a territory, for revenue. I challenge this department to work with the Department of Finance to see if there is viability and an opportunity for the privatization of our airports, because I truly believe we have an opportunity.
Last but not least, I’ve mentioned this many times in the House, is evolving our procurement process, especially in the Department of Transportation, and we’ve seen problems with this in the past under the term of negotiated and sole-sourcing with our procurement process in Transportation.
I’ll be speaking to this more in depth here because the Minister of Finance did table, last week, the findings of the government contracts over $5,000 and the percentage of monies that are being spent in sole-sourcing and negotiated contracts and I’ll be using that information at a further time.
But I believe we have a problem. We have a very antiquated policy when it deals with negotiating and sole-sourcing. Our procurement for our road, the Inuvik-Tuk highway is no different. That is a prime example. I think the process that we have needs a formal review. I’ll say this again and I’ll continue to mention that for the remainder of my term if it doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
The reason why I’m concerned about our procurement process is the fact that once we do negotiate a contract or sole-source policy for the procurement, our BIP is out the window. Our BIP does not have any bearing, which means that our business, our northern businesses, any northern businesses are completely shut out of the process and the procurement process, procurement purchasing and the building of any highway in the Northwest Territories, which leads me to be very concerned about how we’re moving as a territory and trying to build the capacity of our business in the Northwest Territories. When these business dollars are going down south under the guise of a procurement and negotiated contract policy, and when the BIP is not even something that the government here is concerned about, I’ve got a concern. I have to protect the rights; I have to protect the dollars of our businesses; I have to protect it to make sure these businesses have employees and these employees can pay their mortgage and their car payments and everything else and put food on the table.
We’ve been challenged by the Minister of Finance to put 2,000 people in housing and bring them to the Northwest Territories. Getting rid of the BIP process in large-scale contracting is definitely not in that best interest to support that initiative.
Thank you very much. I appreciate committee allowing me to talk a little bit about the general comments of Transportation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. General comments. Next I have Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just some general points, like my colleagues, and more likely a repeat of some issues that are common throughout the NWT that affect the Department of Transportation.
Foremost in my mind is the concept that when you’re driving down a public road and you incur some problems, either it’s a vehicle accident or fatality and you’re there to try and respond, I think the lead agency in trying to provide a service for the travelling public should be the Department of Transportation. I realized over the course of the two years that I’ve been here that I’ve been observing the study or else a mentor department that I prefer to come up with at least a coordinated approach to establish an agency or a body that could respond to vehicle accidents or fatalities that happen on the road.
What I’m specifically referencing is the need for paramedics and first responders and ambulance services to be available on a major highway or transportation system. To this date, we don’t have anything substantive to tell the public, to indicate to them very clearly and confidentially, yes, when you travel, you’re travelling at your own risk; however, this government will be able to provide a service if anything happens. That is not the case ,so I’m hoping that at some point the Department of Transportation will take some leadership in terms of ensuring that the interdepartmental efforts that have been going on for some time will come to fruition and that we’ll have at least a flashpoint of something being established so that there is at least a service of first responders for people that are travelling, especially the public that now enjoys 24-hour access on the transportation system coming from Edmonton to Yellowknife.
The other points that I wanted to highlight is there’s been some reference to the Deh Cho Bridge. Of course, the community I come from is Fort Providence, so we live under the shadow of the bridge. The initial concept, when the discussions took place on the bridge, was that the community wanted to be involved so initiated discussions with governments, so the concept of ownership, and given an opportunity for the community to be involved with a major infrastructure project was basically discussed and hashed out. The same…(inaudible)…possibilities was established. The whole experience, in the end, the bridge was constructed, but at the same time the involvement of the community was minimized. But I still believe what has become of the bridge is that there is a relationship between this government and the community, and I’m hoping the basis of their relationship could be in terms of building a few key pillars of the community would want to initiate in terms of its interest for tourism, whether it’s looking at economic development initiatives, and those possibilities still exist. My hope is that the relationship would not be in vein, that we’re trying to build upon the negatives and try to build something positive out of that whole experience.
Of course, speaking of the bridge, too, in the periphery of the bridge are, of course, the old existing winter crossing where people before were able to cross by vehicle on the ice bridge. Those two peninsulas still exist and there’s one on the south side and one on the north side. Of course, there’s a road that goes alongside the river right from the old winter crossing right to the present site of the bridge and on to the community. That has been a concern for some time for community residents, ensuring that it could be accessible. There are a few residents that make their home out there. It’s important to ensure, for safety purposes, they at least have access to the community and the services for medical emergencies if need be. So, I would encourage the department to keep on working with the community, ensuring that the section of road is maintained.
That area, once again, if there’s any potential because of the interests in fishing, I know the peninsulas provide an opportunity for wind and keeping off the bugs. People just enjoy the area for fishing. However, I think there’s greater potential in how they could plan, organize and at least try to establish a marketing and management regime so that we take advantage of the tourism opportunities that exist in that area.
The other points that I wanted to raise, too, are just in terms of the ferry. The ferry is no longer in existence, of course, so most of our guys have moved on. I always believed that when the Great Slave Lake, the ice moves out about maybe the second week of June and by that time the ice is gone on the Mackenzie right from Beaver Lake all the way down to Inuvik, so you always have about two weeks or a week and a half waiting for the ice to clear before any kind of tugboats can leave Hay River and travel down to Tuktoyaktuk. I think the possibility, perhaps, of building upon nature’s advantage needs to be explored. I would encourage at least some discussions from the perspective of the community.
My other point with regard to airports, my colleague raised the idea that airports could perhaps be considered under the domain of private enterprise. Currently, the airport we have in Fort Providence was built, as I understand it, by the American Army when they were establishing air bases throughout the Mackenzie Valley. The current location right now has it so that any flights coming from Fort Providence would have to almost fly over the community or, in some instances, fly across the river. Sometimes it’s not the greatest situation when you have fog rising from the river. Of course, that becomes a major hindrance for observing the runway. Perhaps the community may be interested in looking at how it is some options could be explored to either expand the facility or looking at some other sites.
The other communities that I serve, one in particular is interested in the idea of providing emergency services, if need be, in the realm of transportation emergencies if there’s a case that arises and there’s a need for an immediate air ambulance. Then the community has to at least have a helipad of some kind.
Those are the key points I wanted to raise. Thank you, Madam Chair.
