Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our public infrastructure includes our airports, highways and ferry operations in the movement of people and goods. The economic driver of our northern Territory is ensuring that these systems all work in conjunction with each other.
Time is money, from the time it takes a person to leave a community to go to a doctor’s appointment or travel to southern Canada. What we are finding with the ferry operations in the Inuvik region is that it’s having an impact and effect on the travelling public and their ability to make their connections at the Inuvik Airport to southern Canada for medical appointments, or for the overall travel of the public.
The time that the ferry operates for the travelling public on the Dempster Highway is... It leaves the Inuvik side at 9:30. It gets to Fort McPherson and leaves there at 9:45. It travels to Tsiigehtchic, leaving there at 10:00. Then it’s back to Inuvik at 10:15. That doesn’t give you much time to make your connections out of Inuvik, which leave at 12:30. What we are finding is the travelling public has missed their international travel simply because of not making their connections out of the Inuvik Airport. This has a very important implication on the travellers to southern Canada and the cost associated with rebooking flights, having to overnight in Inuvik to catch the flight the following day.
I think it’s important that this government seriously looks at the overall ferry operations and the times that our ferry operates in the Northwest Territories. The ferry operations in the Northwest Territories start operations in Fort Providence at 6:00 a.m; Fort Liard at 8:00 a.m. I think it’s important that we do a better job to ensure the travelling public, when they do have travels, are able to coordinate their travel arrangements to make their connections to southern Canada, or their appointments at the doctor’s office, or to simply do their shopping and get home that evening.
I think it’s important that this government does everything it can to ensure we have a system that is coordinated and that people are able to make their arrangements.
At the appropriate time I have questions for the Minister of Transportation.
