Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions, again, will be to the Minister of Transportation on the dredging issue. Can the Minister indicate to me what communications have been done with the federal government to get dredging done in the Northwest Territories and the Hay River area?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our officials have had a meeting with the Canadian Coast Guard and encouraged them to meet with the CMAC and the AMAB, they are two organizations, I guess, known as the Canadian Marine Advisory Council and the Arctic Marine Advisory Board, to see if there can be some dredging done on the Hay River and along the route up the Mackenzie. Thank you.
Can the Minister elaborate on these meetings and how many meetings have happened and when do we expect results to say that this is what we expect to happen over the next little while, over the next two years, 10 years, whatever the expectations are? We’d like to know at least an action plan going forward about the Hay River dredging.
This was our officials in a telephone conference call talking to the Canadian Coast Guard, asking them to meet with the Arctic and Canadian Marine Advisory boards since they had responsibility for that. It’s not something where our officials are meeting directly with individuals that would be responsible for dredging, but rather encouraging one of the key users of the river to meet with these organizations to try to get some money put into the budget. Thank you.
Thank you. Talking about money, I indicated in my Member’s statement that we have built a major highway and we’ve put money into it. We know that’s a federal responsibility, but we know that in order to get some of this stuff going we need to have the leverage.
So, has the Minister talked about us looking at putting some money in to leverage the federal government to get this dredging done?
No, we haven’t offered up any money to our share of any dredging. What we do know is that the federal government is not dredging the harbour in Hay River. They haven’t had a dredging program since the early ‘90s, late ‘80s. Since then we’ve had a little bit of money at one point. I think in 2012 there was $60,000 allocated to remove some of the silt from a key area. But aside from that, essentially the dredging program has been non-operational for the years. It would take some money, for sure, to get the dredging operational again. The dredging equipment that was being used previously at the Hay River Harbour was sold to the municipality. We’ve never been able to get that equipment operational again for the work that was needed on that harbour in Hay River. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. These are answers I’ve heard before. I want to know what the Minister, just recently in Ottawa, did to have a conversation with the federal government to get dredging done.
What meetings did he hold in Ottawa to get this dredging issue dealt with?
Thank you. The responsible Minister is the Minister responsible for Fisheries and Oceans that would have completed the dredging if there was dredging to be done. I didn’t meet with Fisheries and Oceans. I met with the Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of Transportation, Minister responsible for Northern Development. In one discussion I had with the Minister of Transportation I mentioned that dredging in Hay River is needed as part of the transportation out of there, but it’s not her responsibility. We need to engage the Minister responsible for Fisheries and Oceans. If they were to look at dredging, it would be coming from that department. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
