Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Back in 1996-97 Main Estimates the government said publicly about the Yellowknife Airport, “The department will explore, for the privatization of regulations, pursue privatization opportunities.” According to my research, it never happened. In 2002 the government is quoted in the Yellowknife Airport governance review, “We also suggested option seven, private sector third party, is not a practical option or alternative.” Again very little rationale was offered. In 2003 in a Yellowknife Airport Stakeholders Panel report to the Minister the quote was: “goal: to explore the viability at a macro level of alternative governance models for Yellowknife Airport.” Its recommendation was a task force to be formed, and even though the devolution of airports in Canada from government to independent authorities resulted in many success stories across Canada, nothing ever transpired for the NWT legal largest airport.
My question today is for the Minister of Transportation. In my preface for today’s oral questions I referenced only a handful of reports, reviews and consultant papers.
Mr. Speaker, if one was to go back 20 years on the governance and the operational review of the Yellowknife Airport, can the Minister inform the House how many of these reports, reviews and consultant papers has his department undertaken? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. There have been several reports. There was an indication that there may have been seven reports done on airport governance but there may be more than that. There have been a few reports done since then. Thank you.
The Minister is actually correct. In fact, dialogues behind the scenes reveal that there were at least seven reports in the 20 years in terms of trying to find a solution to this problem. Which leads me to ask: On February 10, 2015, in a series of oral questions from the Member for Range Lake, the Minister made a number of statements that the Yellowknife Airport governance was identified to be reviewed yet again by this government. Can the Minister elaborate? Thank you.
The latest report was completed in March 2014. It looked at five similar types of airports as far as landings and passenger volumes go and because of their varying governance systems. We’ve looked at those five reports. We’ve now put an RFP out, which will close on March 2nd, to examine the various alternatives in those five different airports to determine which governance structure we feel would be the best to move forward with the Yellowknife Airport. Thank you.
Again, on February 10, 2015, the Minister was quoted as saying, “We’re going to look at management options at the airport so we can review all the options.” Again I ask the Minister, can he clarify what specifically is going to be uncovered that has not already been done, at minimum, seven times before? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
There would mainly be three options, alternatives that we would look at. We would look at a Crown corporation; we’re going to look at airport authority and even possibly using a GNWT revolving fund similar to the way we administer petroleum products.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, there’s a lot of foolishness in all the delaying and deferring that the Department of Transportation has undertaken in the last 20 years on this subject. Again, the Minister made reference to a report. He claims that was on March of 2014. A report that has never been tabled in this House, a report that is buried in the website of the Department of Transportation to which I haven’t been able to find, but I did get a copy from the department.
We also heard on February 20, 2014, the Minister saying, “We’ve hired a consultant to specifically look at these for consideration, probably by the next government.”
Can the Minister indicate why this government is sloughing this responsibility onto the backs of the 18th Assembly? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the volume at the Yellowknife Airport changes fairly regularly. Right now we have approximately 500,000 passengers moving through Yellowknife Airport on an annual basis. We are looking at that now. We are hoping to… The RFP will close. We’re going to do an evaluation. What I’m seeing, just by drawing a timeline from March 2nd for the evaluation, hiring the actual consultant that’s going to be doing the work, I’m seeing that the results of that would likely be sitting on the desks of the 18th Assembly. We’re not sloughing the responsibility, but we’re looking at the timeline.
I realize that right now it’s costing us about $2 million to run the airport annually. If we were to do one simple math to determine how we’re going to recover that, we’d just be passing that $2 million on to the passengers who are flying through Yellowknife Airport. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
