Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the Minister of ITI had an exchange on the Sahtu oil and gas exploration and the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to be spent in the Sahtu in the next couple of years. In Fort Good Hope, they actually closed off the bid there and Shell Canada won. I think it’s just over $90 million worth of exploration.
I want to ask the Minister, in regard to the Mackenzie Valley Highway, we’re going to do this in steps and, certainly, we in the Sahtu support the Inuvik-Tuk highway to go through. We’re also looking forward to some support to build a highway into the Sahtu. I want to ask specifically to the Minister, is there any discussion up around Fort Good Hope to building a winter road up to the Dempster Highway. I know people in Fort Good Hope were talking about this. Is there any type of discussion with the department?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The two leases near Fort Good Hope totalled $92 million. I thank the Member for bringing that up.
On the discussion regarding connecting the Mackenzie Valley winter road between Fort Good Hope and Tsiigehtchic, it’s something that was brought up at meetings. I was on a constituency tour with Member Blake in the spring and it’s something that came up at a number of his communities. It is also something that I’ve instructed the department to include in the business plan that was before the House just a couple months back.
It does require a great deal of permitting. It’s certainly not something that could occur this coming winter, but something I see happening next winter, perhaps, if the permitting can get done. It would really, to me, make a statement about the Mackenzie Valley and the fact that the Northwest Territories is open for business. We don’t have an all-weather highway down the Mackenzie Valley yet, but if we could connect the valley with a winter road, I think that’s a step in the right direction, and it says the right things about the economy here and our intent to get an all-weather highway down the Mackenzie Valley at some point in time.
