Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to make amendments to Motion 9-16(5).
I MOVE, seconded by the Member for Yellowknife Centre, that Motion 9-16(5) be amended by deleting the word “directs” from the resolution portion of the motion and insert the words “strongly urges.”
AND FURTHER, that Motion 9-16(5) be amended by deleting the words “for this important piece of infrastructure in the Northwest Territories” from the resolution portion of the motion, and inserting the words “for the construction of the Bear River Bridge”.
There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the amendment.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
To the motion as amended. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to just again state very clearly that this piece of infrastructure would certainly help the people in the Sahtu region in terms of the benefits that I have read out in the motion. More importantly, because of the climate change that’s happening in the Northwest Territories and the safety issue of the residents who are coming in and out of the Sahtu using the ice road, also that will help us with our economic opportunities in terms of longer periods for oil and gas exploration or any other types of exploration that could be happening in the Sahtu, and that the Department of Transportation continues working with the region and this government here to seek out various sources of funding that could see the construction of the Bear River Bridge.
I want to thank my colleagues here for giving me the opportunity to put this motion on the floor and bring attention to it as we talk about the importance of legacy projects in the Northwest Territories. We have some experience now with the Deh Cho Bridge and certainly we would use some of that valuable experience in terms of how we go forward in terms of P3 projects in the Northwest Territories.
I think people in the Sahtu, people in Norman Wells, people in Tulita certainly want to see the Bear River Bridge completed, see the…(inaudible)…have some light. All the plans were in place having this project; however, due to funding increases, we just had to put the plans on the shelf. Now it’s there, it’s ready to go. We just need the funding and the will of the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada and certainly we can see this happen. I want to say that this is one project that we look forward to in the Sahtu. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Hawkins, for supporting this motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion as amended. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is an honour to work with my colleague Mr. Norman Yakeleya, MLA for the Sahtu, on this motion, Mr. Speaker. It is always exciting when we can work on nation-building motions.
I believe this is a good project for the North that can help develop access and wide-ranging benefits for the whole area. Mr. Speaker, this is a significant project that could help the cost of living in the Sahtu. I think it would be one of those projects that would make the difference there. Mr. Speaker, it will also open up opportunities, as it says in the motion, to help tourism, exploration and certainly economic development that gets sidelined during those breakup and freeze-up seasons, Mr. Speaker. I think this could do well for that community.
Mr. Speaker, in short, I really like projects that will change the lives of people for the better. I think that this is an important piece of infrastructure that will go a long ways towards building that legacy infrastructure we like to refer to as the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I think as we build piece by piece, we can help connect communities to ensure that we all continue to benefit from those types of projects.
Mr. Speaker, just in closing, I just want to emphasize that it is always a pleasure to work with my colleague. I think we can do well. I would like to certainly see Cabinet support this motion. As I know, deep down in their hearts, they do support it. It is about time that we build some of those bridges on these initiatives and this will be one of them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion as amended. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will support this motion cautiously because I also have been pushing for the Peel River Bridge. I think that we also have to look at other infrastructure in the North. I know that we have to connect our highway systems to communities and I think also realizing that we have to ensure that public infrastructure, whenever possible, should be formatted to some sort of a P3 process. I know that there is a program that is out there. The project is over $50 million. I think that this project gets that.
Again, I would just like to stipulate that I would like to also notify the government that they also should consider other projects such as the Peel River Bridge and also the bridge on the Liard. I think that we have to realize that at some point, a lot of work has been done in those areas and especially in regards to the letter I received from the former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Yakeleya, who basically stipulated that he was seriously looking at the Peel River Bridge and seeing what we can do on that one.
It is a good Minister committed to helping out. Again, show us that if there is a will, there is a way. There have been commitments made. I have submitted letters to the Premier along with letters of support from the Gwich’in Tribal Council, looking at a P3 from the Gwich’in Tribal Council in Fort McPherson. I think we also have to work with other communities on these projects. I just want to point out that this project should not be a stand-alone. It should also look at other legacy projects. Again, I will support the motion cautiously.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. To the motion as amended. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I want to say I appreciate the Member’s efforts for working towards moving this project forward. I also recognize the Member for Yellowknife Centre for thinking outside of Yellowknife Centre.
Our Government of the Northwest Territories has been working quite hard to move the desire to have the highway done, the Mackenzie Valley moving forward. We certainly have been taking the planning of doing so very seriously and continue to make that a priority for us. We have now moved forward towards doing the project description reports for a number of sections on the highway. There are still a couple of agreements that we are working towards including. This is a very significant step forward to achieve the vision of developing and building a Mackenzie Valley Highway.
I want to say I am very pleased with the cooperation and involvement of all the land claim groups and of all the aboriginal businesses that have taken the time to talk to us along the proposed highway route. Of course, the Bear River is a very important portion or part of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I don’t think anybody is going to disagree. We certainly support the arguments and the benefits noted in the resolution, and the construction and the operation of a bridge across the Bear River will bring a large variety of benefits to Tulita and other communities in the Sahtu. The construction of the bridge over the Bear River will result in earlier openings, which is always a problem for us, and a later closing of the Mackenzie Valley Winter Road. We recognize this portion of the winter road as a bottleneck and causes problems on an annual basis.
However, we also have to recognize the cost of the Bear River Bridge has been pegged at $60 million at last count and we certainly need Canada’s commitment to provide the necessary resources to build this bridge and also to build this highway. As a department and as Minister, I have personally raised this issue a number of times for funding with the federal government in meetings with Canada. The project was proposed for funding with the Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund. It was also proposed again under the Building Canada Plan and more recently under the federal stimulus funding. Unfortunately, the significant cost to construct the bridge was a challenge to actually move this project forward.
So the department officials, DOT, will be discussing P3 projects or potential P3 projects as the Bear River Bridge motion moves forward. We will certainly take the opportunity to talk to them. We believe there’s a meeting set up fairly soon in Yellowknife with those officials and we will be meeting with them as soon as possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion as amended. I will allow the mover of the motion closing comments, if you wish, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Members in the House here again to allow this important piece of infrastructure for the people of the North and the people of the Sahtu to come to the table to have some discussion to see what kind of avenues are available to us to start putting the steel together to have the Bear River Bridge up and people actually don’t have to be concerned about using eight kilometres of winter road every year in the Sahtu, especially around Tulita and Norman Wells and other communities that do use this crossing.
I want to thank the efforts of the Ministers to see where we could put this piece of infrastructure in place so we can actually see the construction of the bridge.
I also wanted to say to my other colleagues that there are other important infrastructure in the North that we have to build, as Mr. Krutko outlined in his comments in terms of the Peel River. I have a letter and my name is on it to him. I wanted to say I certainly support other Members in terms of infrastructure they want to go to their region. I know how important these types of infrastructure are to our people outside of places where they already have bridges and accesses. It’s very important to our people. Our lives actually depend on it. So thank you very much for allowing this motion to come forward.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion as amended.
Question.
Question has been called. Motion is carried as amended.
---Carried
