Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement, I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation a few questions. The one thing I forgot to mention was not only do we have issues with the hours of operation in Tsiigehtchic but also the waiting time. Many constituents have to wait 10 minutes on each side, not to mention the actual other 10 to 15 minutes.
With that, my first question for the Minister is: When will the department develop and construct a permanent landing that can be used on both the Peel River and the Mackenzie River crossings?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The department works with the ferry operator to continue to try to improve the landings of both ferries at all times. There may be years when we have dumped a lot of gravel to try to secure and make the landings harder and so on and then they wash out. It is something that we constantly work at to try to make the ferry landings safe and even possible. We work on it all the time. So, if there is a permanent solution that is out there, we are also trying to find a permanent solution as well.
Will the Minister change the hours of operation on the Mackenzie River from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. back to 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m., which would be the same as the Peel River ferry hours?
The hours of operation are something that we’ve worked with and we’ve heard from the community of Tsiigehtchic that they wanted the hours of operation moved to certain hours. We would work with the community. If the community recommended hours that everybody supports in the community that are affected, we would have no issue moving the hours around, as long as we’re not adding hours outside of what we’re allowed to do within the standards that we follow and the guidelines that we follow to operate the ferry.
At this time we’re operating within the hours that we think the communities want. If the communities don’t want those hours, then we will go back into discussions to perhaps change the hours to what the community would like to see.
Earlier this summer the ferry in Tsiigehtchic started waiting on each side for 10 minutes, and the explanation that was given to my constituents was that the department was trying to save on fuel.
Will the Minister direct his department to ensure the Louis Cardinal Ferry is not waiting on each landing for 10 minutes to save on fuel?
The ferry sits for 10 minutes. That’s the call of the captain. The captain makes that call. The captain makes the call, but he’s given little opportunity to potential oncoming traffic. So just coming there and picking up vehicles and going back immediately, they sometimes are just missing vehicles by a little bit. If they have room on their ferry, they wait for 10 minutes to ensure that nobody is coming, and if no one comes then they will proceed, and if someone comes they will have benefitted from the ferry captain making the decision to wait for the time period that they do wait, which is 10 minutes, as the Member had indicated. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems that the captain makes up his own mind in many cases, because many times he picks up someone and leaves right away.
Will the Minister ensure that we have the same practice as we did in the past, which is whenever we had a full load they’d go to the other side? It was on demand in the past and many of my constituents would like that to be in place once again. Thank you.
We can talk to the ferry operator. The ferry operator and the department do discuss how the ferry should be running back and forth on a regular basis if it’s deemed that the best way to continue to move back and forth was just based on demand by viewing the vehicles across or viewing vehicles at Tsiigehtchic, and that’s the way the ferry is going to operate and that’s something that we can discuss with the captain. So, with that, even when they do come across and they see that there are vehicles there, they still would be beneficial, and it’s not, say, few, but beneficial to the travelling public for them to wait a while. But we can have those discussions with the ferry operator if the Member deems that that’s what should happen. We will do that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
