Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Transportation. January 6th to 7th and the 8th, the Minister and I took an afternoon drive to the Sahtu communities of Tulita and Fort Good Hope. There were a lot of complaints from the residents. We went through washboard alley and pothole dip valley also. The roads are not quite as smooth as we thought they were, despite the good work of our contractors. A lot of people were asking, where is the water, where’s the water paving program of this department on the Sahtu winter road? I want to ask the Minister what happened this year compared to the previous years when we had real good, smooth roads.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In previous years we did get some additional funds to do the winter road from industry. So when there was some activity in and around Norman Wells, we received an additional $400,000 annually from industry to support us with a road that led from about where the road gets rough where the Sahtu/Deh Cho line is up to Norman Wells. This year we didn’t get that money until we were able to negotiate a separate deal for less than that from industry. Thank you.
After driving the winter roads, boy, was my back ever sore. It’s 12 hours, two days driving the roads. I want to ask the Minister, is his department looking at any other means of watering the road so that it will stay longer? I know there are different mechanisms to water the winter roads from Wrigley on up to Fort Good Hope and even to the smaller communities. Is the department looking at any other ways to smooth out the road?
As I indicated, we had received some money from industry to work on the winter roads in the Sahtu. We also hired two supervisors that are monitoring the roads to make sure that if the roads got too rough that they will be reporting it and we will try to pay some additional attention to that.
After driving the road, we also had discussions internally at the department to see if we shouldn’t come back to the government for more money to be put into the base to put on the winter road. We do think it’s needed; it’s fairly rough. We’re getting quite a few complaints from industry, people going in there hauling supplies and fuel and so on. So at this point we are considering that for the future and we’re going to do some extra grading as well. Thank you.
On the winter road from Norman Wells to Fort Good Hope, just before we get to washboard alley there, there’s a bridge that’s sitting there all by itself. So, there are over $1 million in assets sitting there. I want to ask the Minister what is the bridge there for, because it has been sitting there for the last 11 years since I’ve been MLA for the Sahtu. Is that part of the highway decorations, or are we going to use that bridge? What is the government going to do with that bridge?
It is an odd-looking bridge and sort of in the middle of nowhere. The bridge was put in and then they had some issues on the approach of the bridge. It’s quite high and so on. The department is looking at it now. It’s been there for quite a while, but what we are talking about is trying to go to… I think we were initially advised by elders to move it I believe it’s 1.8 kilometres up that creek, and then that would be where we’d have to realign the winter road. So we’re looking at the cost of that. The cost of that is fairly substantial, but at the same time if we don’t do it, then we would have to do something on the current site, which I guess would also be difficult and substantial and probably would mean more bridging in that area. So, that’s Oscar Creek and we are trying to come up with a solution. We had some discussions at the department upon our return from going to look at that bridge and we will hopefully be trying to come forth with a solution soon. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people really appreciate the Minister coming on the Sahtu winter roads and seeing it for himself. The previous Minister came on the winter road, too, drove the 700 and some-odd kilometres. I think we need to have some of our people here, some of the Ministers and people here just to take a drive on these winter roads just to experience it, to know what we’re talking about. It’s really strange to sit here and talk about it without first experiencing and knowing what people, day in and day out, go through on the Sahtu winter roads.
I want to thank the department and the contractors for doing good work. I want to ask the Minister, are we going to have this type of experience again next winter in light of maybe not seeing any type of significant work in the oil and gas industry?
Thank you. We have a guy that is going to be living in Tulita right throughout the entire winter road season who works for us. He’s a fairly senior individual in the Department of Transportation. He’ll be working with two monitors also out of the Fort Simpson office and we’ll be doing some debriefing at the end of the winter road to see what is needed. I think it’s at that point that the department has indicated that there may be certainly a look at our base. We have a certain amount of money in the base and that requires the contractor to grade at certain intervals and sometimes there’s a lot of snow in between, unfortunately. So we may look at how the grading schedule works with the contractor and that way try to maximize the work of the graders as we try to improve the winter road. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
