Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a quote, and I talked about it earlier in my Member’s statement. The quote says, “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” I want to ask the Minister of Transportation in regards to this type of issue I was talking about. It’s just a simple one, a small one and I’ve been asking for a number of years, especially at this time of the year that…
I want to ask the Minister, are there any types of plans within the Department, the government, to look at decentralizing the transportation office into the Sahtu?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Transportation continuously looks at the possibility of establishing a regional office in the Sahtu, and we recognize that right now they have a full operation at airports in Norman Wells, but they don’t have a full highways operation, which usually the regional office has some marine, some highways – well, a lot of highways – and some airports.
Right now in Norman Wells it’s essentially just an airports operation and then for three months out of the year there’s a winter road operation, a registered winter road. So, we try to move staff in there, into the region, on a rotational basis during the winter road season. But we do continuously look at it, and as we move closer to a possibility of building a Mackenzie Valley Highway, then it becomes more viable. Thank you.
With Transportation we also get our regional office for the airports. It’s out of the Inuvik region. I’m saying Transportation has that office up there.
Is the Minister also looking at that section of the department?
I think we do recognize that probably if the other two components that usually consist of a regional office, like, a bit of marine and highways operation, along with what is currently in Norman Wells, it would constitute the regional presence. But right now it appears as though we have only the airport presence, and like I indicated, we’re looking into the future and we’re seeing the possibility there for sure. But probably at the time the all-season road is being constructed would be the time that we would start to ramp up for a regional office in the Sahtu. Thank you.
We have maybe seven, eight months left in the term of this government. Are there some concrete plans from this government, this department, to look at, maybe in the 18th, that maybe Transportation will be moving or consider moving to the Sahtu so that the Sahtu can have their own superintendent and their own regional office that would be deemed as an independent office in our region?
Certainly, DOT is a very decentralized operation. Sixty-nine percent of our staff are in the regions, so we’re sort of equipped to operate out of the regions. It would be something I would certainly look at in the transition document as something that we would be looking to pass on to the next government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
