Mr. Speaker, with regard to my Member’s statement regarding the access road to Aklavik, I moved a motion in this House, and it was passed unanimously. Yet nowhere to be seen is there even any reference to the road to Aklavik.
I see that the access road to Tuk has been approved. I’m looking at a budget of $12 million. Yet, Mr. Speaker, a necessity to communities is gravel. When this government spends $2 million to move gravel from Inuvik to Aklavik by barge, there’s insanity to that. I think it’s important that this government realizes that we are dealing with threats by way of global warming, floods and whatnot in a community in which the gravel source is ten kilometres from the community.
This government has spent money in the past for access road funding, which was an application-based program for $50,000 a year. This government knows about the specific requests. So I’m asking the Minister a question. This government is going to be getting some $275 million from the federal government by way of the Building Canada Fund, strategic infrastructure investment fund, but nowhere are the small communities even hinted at by way of these projects.
There's a list that has been sent to Ottawa. I’d like to ask the Minister or the Premier: how can communities get added to this list, knowing that the government has already submitted a list to the federal government for these particular projects? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since 1995–1996 and 2004–2005, this department has been working with the community of Aklavik on the ATV community access road project. In 2001 the community of Aklavik requested that the department relook at the ATV trail and convert it into an all-weather road to the source that Mr. Krutko made reference to, at Willow River.
This department has been listening to the community of Aklavik and the communities down the Mackenzie Valley. We have spent $309,000 on this access road now that’s been determined.
We are committed to building partnerships with industry at the level of government, such as mentioned yesterday by the Finance Minister, and some of the partnerships are going under the Building Canada Fund.
We are very much interested in going back into Aklavik, relooking at the request, and sitting down with the community. The Member and I had some discussions on when we could get into Aklavik and have a community discussion in terms of what can we do to look at their needs. We also need to talk with the community in terms of their gravel sources, as to who does this. We've stated that they're now responsible for such projects as gravel sources. It will be coming up in our discussions with my officials. We are prepared to go in to the Member’s riding.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister was nowhere even close to answering my question. My question was: what does the community have to do to get on the list of projects that are going to be funded through the federal government, through the Building Canada Fund, the strategic initiative investment fund?
Nowhere on this list do I see any communities that are not in Ministers’ ridings, for one thing.
Interjections.
I’d like to ask the Minister: what do you have to do to get on the list that we’ve been sending to the federal government? We don’t have input from this side of the House?
Mr. Speaker, we have to go through a process. The other projects have gone through a process.
The community of Aklavik is again asking for an issue that.... This project in Aklavik is something that we have to look at very seriously. We have to do some engineering; we have to do some studies. We do it every year, as we go through our lists.
The project we identified is somewhere in the Building Canada Fund, in terms of our research and development initiatives, but we have to do some work there.
So we are continuing to work with the community of Aklavik, going forward on a yearly basis. We’ll have to have some more discussions with the community and the Member. And from there, we will take it as to what are the priorities of the Government of the Northwest Territories, in terms of investments in our infrastructures.
Mr. Speaker, I will try to make it as simple as I can. There was a list submitted to the federal government on projects from this government. We as Ordinary Members have not had an opportunity to put items on that list, but yet, through the strategic committees that are set up on the other side, they had that discussion internally. There was a list sent to Ottawa in regard to projects they wanted to see, on that side of the House, but nowhere on that list is reference to a project that I would like to see on it.
I’d like to ask the Minister: when will the Members on this side of the House have an opportunity to put on that list projects that have been in the books going back to 1991? All we are doing is talking about this project. When are we going to really see the reality of something happening here?
Mr. Speaker, let’s be very clear. We had the list, which we put together. We met with the committees. We’ve talked about the review on a yearly basis. We’ll come back again to have some further discussions.
I have mentioned to the Member that under research and development and the Building Canada Fund — the portion that we will take from the funding there — we will look at the Aklavik gravel source and other projects. We have to look at investment right down the Mackenzie Valley for people in the Beaufort-Delta or the Gwich’in area.
The department has invested heavily into the Member’s riding. The Aklavik gravel source is up there, and he’s been talking to me. It’s going to be something that I’ll have further discussions on with him and the community members when we provide another list that is scheduled to be submitted to the federal government.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Final short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I’ve been hearing too little too long. I know that if you don’t get a project on the budget process, you’ll never see the light of day.
So I’d like to ask the Minister: knowing that it is not on this particular budget this time around, can we see it in the next year’s budget, to ensure that we actually see some activity done on the project, which has been around this table since 1991?
Again I say to the Members, through our research and development fund and the Building Canada Fund, we will look at the gravel source request from Aklavik in terms of an all-weather road.
We’ll do a cost-benefit analysis. We’ll look across the Northwest Territories and see if it makes any sense to put money where we think it’s needed in terms of our infrastructure, or new infrastructure. Some of the communities don’t even have roads into the community. Some of them have other requests. We’ve got to look at them and prioritize them and see that they fit within our goals of connecting communities.
When we continue reviewing the list that we have, we’ll see if it fits the criteria in terms of future funding. For now, we’ll continue working with the Member on this issue.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
