Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I’m looking at two sections. The first one is the Inuvik-Tuk road and, of course, the other one the Minister and I personally had experience on from Fort Good Hope to Fort Simpson.
My question is directed to the Minister of Transportation. If the project is approved by both governments, do you think that we’ll be able to get the people in the region working right away? We want to see some action.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our expectation is, should the project move ahead, that work could start there potentially this season, which would mean people would be put to work almost immediately.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about is the training programs. Would there be training programs in place so that if this project, again, is approved and the project is taking off, would there be training programs for the people to take advantage of?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Kind of a hypothetical question but, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’d be working closely with ECE on any training initiatives associated with the construction of that highway.
Has the Minister had some type of an idea as to when we would know for sure that this project is going to begin some actual groundwork in that area?
We’re awaiting approvals from the federal government and word from the federal government on funding. As soon as that happens, we certainly will be moving things along.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The winter season is coming to closure and soon it will be warm. Does the Minister have some plans in place, once the federal government has given us the permission slip to go ahead on this section of the road, do we see any type of difficulties due to the warming of the seasons?
We’d have to act very quickly in order to see construction start this season. As Members know, we’re already into March and the season isn’t too much longer. We’ve probably got another five or six weeks in the Beaufort-Delta to actually get a lot of that work done, so we’d have to work quickly.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
