Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask my questions to the Minister of Transportation about transportation in the Sahtu region, specifically the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I know that the Tulita district has submitted a submission under the Community Access Program in an effort to see that some work can get done in the region to prepare the young workers to be ready once the Mackenzie Valley Highway is under construction, which is an initiative the federal government has undertaken.
Can the Minister update this House and people in the Sahtu as to this community access proposal that has been submitted by the Tulita District Corporation?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are many aspects to the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I recognize that each of the groups are interested in having an opportunity to train some of their people and start to build some access to materials that they would need to build a Mackenzie Valley Highway should we see approval. The Tulita district, I recognize that their proposal, I believe is what the Member is referring to, was to come south from Tulita to access the first gravel access further south, which I believe is 32 kilometres. They are also looking at the possibility of staging the Mackenzie Valley Highway, should we get approval. That is staging the highway so that the Bear River Bridge would be the first piece of the Mackenzie Valley Highway from Wrigley to Norman Wells. That would give them a closer access to the first bit of material, which would be on the other side of the river from Tulita and not too far away from Tulita.
With that, I know the department has been looking at all of the access road proposals, which is beyond the scope of what we would consider community access. These are access roads, more capital, that is working towards the eventual construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Thank you.
Over the years the people in the Sahtu, specifically the Tulita District Corporation, have worked for a number of years on a proposal to look at building infrastructure. They have looked from Norman Wells south to Tulita. They actually put in the Canyon Creek proposal.
Where is that proposal within the federal government’s infrastructure, capital planning? Where is it in this government? What can the people expect from that proposal in the coming years from this government and our government? When can we start building our roads in the Sahtu?
Another important part of the Mackenzie Valley Highway has been the Canyon Creek Road. Canyon Creek Road will give people the ability, who are eventually going to be building the highway, to access material for the highway. Canyon Creek proposal has been reviewed, approved at our level, GNWT. We’ve now included it in the overall Building Canada Plan bundle number two. We are presenting three different bundles to the government. We had bundle one approved last June. What we are hoping to do is have bundle two approved anywhere between January and March of 2016, and we’re hoping as soon as that’s approved, we will be able to start some construction on the Canyon Creek Road. Thank you.
That is good news and that it comes through from bundle two and the approved Build Canada projects.
Does this give enough incentive for this government to say we can look at a proposed highway transportation office in the Sahtu? Will that give enough to move your thinking to start planning a transportation office that’s needed in the Sahtu? I have asked this question over 100 times and I got 100 different reasons why this government said no to a regional transportation office in the Sahtu. Is this enough? Thank you.
Prior to potential construction of a Mackenzie Valley Highway, we will have probable opportunities to have year-round or an independent region in Norman Wells would be of all of the major access roads. We are talking about the access road and the new proposal that’s taking the access from Good Hope to Jackfish Lake, and the new proposal that would take the next step from Tulita south, and also Canyon Creek. If all of those were funded, there may be a lot of summer work that may be required in conjunction. If that Mackenzie Valley was approved, there would be probably enough work to have a highway section based in Norman Wells that could ultimately become a region on its own.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So that’s 100 no’s so far. I want to ask the Minister, given that the lights are going to be closing pretty soon on the 17th Assembly, and this is going to be my third government that I’ve been asking for a regional transportation office – this is the third one now – I want to ask if this is enough, you know that the work that is going to happen in the Sahtu, to put even an interim or a part-time or something to show that maybe the next government will have the might and determination to say yes, we can do this. I want to ask him if that’s something that’s going to go into some report, because after 12 years you still get a no from this government, as much as we could show it will be a while if you follow the Minister’s projection, it will be a while before we get a full-time transportation office in the Sahtu.
I wonder how it would be if we had something like that in Yellowknife where the regional office was in Behchoko or Gameti or Lutselk'e and see how they like it.
It’s more an issue of the volume of work. Right now, all of the airport divisions, the airports in the regions all report to a regional superintendent. One of the solutions that the Member at one time proposed was that perhaps the first step would be to move the airport operations in the Sahtu to report to headquarters here in Yellowknife, and we had looked at that. Right now that would be a bit of hybrid from what we’re doing. What we wanted to do was continue to move forward on the Member’s demand to have basically a highways section, a marine section and an airport section all in a regional office. When we come to that conclusion, the only highway basically is the winter road. So far what’s been happening is by servicing the winter road out of Simpson, and placing people in the Sahtu throughout the whole winter road season seemed to be an effective way to deal with all of the DOT operations in the Sahtu at this time.
As I indicated, if there was more highway, like the Mackenzie Valley Highway, for sure that would become a possibility where there would be enough volume of work in the Sahtu that we could have an office in Norman Wells, but today there just isn’t.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
