Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For as long as I’ve been in Hay River, and I’m sure for many years before I got there, there have been very strong ties between what was called the Hay River Reserve, the K’atlodeeche First Nation and the town of Hay River. These two communities are located on the east and west sides of the Hay River. Mr. Speaker, there has never been a permanent link between these two communities and when there is no ice road in the wintertime, it requires the residents to travel many miles, clock many miles to travel back and forth between these communities. People from across, as we fondly refer to it, attend school, they attend church, they have family, we have families that live on both sides of the river and yet there has never been a permanent link to make the distance between these two communities more affordable and, I guess, easier to get between.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation, to his knowledge, has there ever been a study or a costing done of what it would take to put a permanent bridge between the communities of the K'atlodeeche First Nation and the town of Hay River? Thank you.
Good question.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, I believe, and I’d have to check with my colleague from MACA, but I believe the municipality did a costing and an assessment of putting a bridge between the two communities. Thank you.
And the costing was done.
---Interjection
Yeah, a bridge would be helpful. I’m not too sure, thinking back to whether or not there was always political agreement about whether such a bridge would impact the residents of the Hay River Reserve in a way that they wanted at the time. So I’d like to ask, when was the last time that question was posed to the people of Hay River and the K'atlodeeche First Nation? Thank you.
The Member is talking about a community in my riding, so I guess I’d have to say it’s been posed a number of times directly to me as the MLA for that community. I don’t believe the Department of Transportation has ever done an assessment of what it costs to build a bridge between the two communities. It’s viewed as a municipal piece of infrastructure at this point. I’d have to confirm that, of course, but I have not seen any information aside from the discussion we had some time ago when I was first elected as an MLA to the Deh Cho, that I’ve seen some documents I believe were put together by the municipality who paid for...the Town of Hay River, I should say, that paid for the research. Thank you.
So what would it take to get such a bridge back onto the agenda? I guess if you’re saying it’s not a piece of GNWT infrastructure, obviously it’s not something that the taxpayers of the two communities could take on. What options are there open to investigate further the idea of building this link between these two communities with traditional and very longstanding ties to each other? Thank you.
My own opinion on this, of course, is that it would take a coordinated approach between the two communities. I know, and have heard from the K'atlodeeche people, and there’s been a number of requests at public meetings to try to see if there is any merit in having a piece of infrastructure built between the two communities. We have not seen any coordinated effort between the two communities to come forth jointly, and I think we’d have to involve other departments to see if we can find the resources to assist or submit some type of proposal that would identify the cost and type of infrastructure that would be required. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It takes resources to build the ice bridge every year and to maintain that bridge. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation who pays for the building of that ice bridge and the maintaining of it over the winter months. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I believe the cost is borne by the two communities, cost-shared. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
