Thank you very much. So, it appears that we’ve got about $30 million that is part of this a little over $69 million that’s going to be attributed to that one project, which is part of that succession of multiple years in the making here. We know that this project was accelerated last year through both regular process as well as supplementary process. What part of those monies in the past years of both regular appropriation as well as supplementary appropriation is still sitting in stasis? That is that we’ve actually appropriated money in a bill. This money was given to this department to manage. We got so many kilometres done. We apply for funding from the federal government and then we get matching contributions. How much money is so-called left in a reserve that has not been used from the previous appropriations? Thank you.
For the carry-over numbers, that’s one I’d like to ask the deputy to provide the information.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We carried over about $4.5 million from last fiscal year into the current one. That’s added to the budget that was voted and approved last October. It was $90 million and then we have $30 million next fiscal year and then $4 million in ’17-18 to finish up the project.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Neudorf. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you. So, it’s safe to say that we’ve got $4 million of residual or reserve from last year not spent, potentially $30 million that could be appropriated this year. So for a total of $34 million, is that what we’ll see for this fiscal construction season coming up, or will committee be seeing any type of supplementary to accelerate this quicker? Is that going to be enough money to fulfill the obligation of the contractor to meet obligations on a construction timetable? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do feel that there is enough money to finish the highway.
We also know that, I believe, there was a contingency reserve fund put aside within this project. I can’t remember the exact number, but I believe it was around $5 million. Has any of that contingency money been used, and if so, how much and for what and is there any anticipation that that contingency fund might be used in this upcoming construction season? Thank you.
I can tell you that it was around $200,000, but I don’t have the details of what it was spent on. We’re not scheduled to use the contingency fund in this construction season that we’re now getting some appropriation for.
Thank you. One final question. Are we safe to assume that the contractor is in a so-called “ready, go” position for this upcoming winter season, that we have all the trucks in place, all the people, their employees in place? This $30 million that is appropriated today in conjunction with the $4 million reserve last year, is it going to be sufficient to say that we should have a pretty good completed project at the end of this construction season? Thank you.
I just have to clear something up here, $4.5 million carried over at the end of the last fiscal year. We had $90 million appropriated for this fiscal year that we’re in and that’s a factor as well. We’re, in this fiscal year, spending the money right now. So I just don’t want to leave that out completely and we didn’t just go from $4.5 and then jump to the $30 million that we’re trying to get now into the House, but there’s the advance, as the Members know, so that last year’s budget was, or this current year’s budget was $90 million.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Next on my list I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just following up specifically on Highway No. 8. It’s really interesting here about the half negotiated contract with that one, but just in terms of the amount of rainfall and the amount of work that’s gone into the work that was done on the highway, is there any extra dollars that would be going into the construction and the surfacing and resurfacing and continued maintenance on the highway, considering the amount of rainfall that we had and the damage that it’s done on the highways?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to ask the deputy to respond to that.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had $4.5 million in capital this year. We negotiated about 50 percent of that with the Gwich’in company and we tendered the other 50 percent. The Gwich’in companies are usually quite competitive in bidding on that work as well. The tendered portion of the work did get done this year. The negotiated portion was a little late in starting, so probably won’t get it all done. They ran into some wet weather and bad conditions at the end of the year. So if there’s any money left over or work left over then we’ll carry over that funding, or we’ll ask the House to carry it over I guess.
In terms of the O and M on the road, we have sufficient O and M money to take care of the road in all kinds of weather conditions. Thank you.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Moses.
Thank you. Just continuing on with that, I see there is a lot of highways mobile equipment that’s being purchased this year and when you look at the substantiation sheet there in a few places here, I see Fort McPherson is getting a loader. I was just kind of wondering, because over the wintertime and due to the weather, sometimes that section of highway gets closed for the amount of days and lack of equipment sometimes results in prolonged closures of the road and not being able to open it a lot sooner and you get a lot of people stuck in either Eagle Plains or trying to go back and you look at the food issue and supplies. So I was just wondering if that was something that we’ve seen over the year, whether or not there might be some type of mobile equipment, either purchase more in Fort McPherson or Inuvik to keep that highway open, so when the highway does close due to weather and snow buildup that we have equipment on there working right away in different sections so we can get traffic moving a lot sooner than later. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do have equipment strategically placed at James Creek, McPherson and we’re trying to, when there’s bad weather and the highway’s blowing, get it open as quickly as possible. We’re not thinking that adding more pieces of equipment will keep the road open. Often the road is closed on the Yukon side. So we don’t think it’s really a lack of equipment, rather just conditions of weather on the Dempster.
One question the Minister made reference to is on the Yukon side. I know we’ve put a lot of resources into our highways and obviously referenced here in the infrastructure budget. I know the question came up earlier in this government, whether or not our Minister speaks directly with the Yukon government to see what kind of investments they’re doing to upkeep their side of the Dempster Highway. In the summertime it can get really bad in certain sections and then, as you mentioned, we do a good job to try and open up the highway in the wintertime. On the Yukon side, are they putting in as much effort as I think they should, and whether or not the Minister will make a commitment to speak to his counterpart to try to get those investments in place for a better road? We really promote tourism and now the Inuvik-Tuk Highway is going to be opening up. We want to have a safe driving road so that they’re not turning around at Eagle Plains and not continuing on. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Our regional people are in contact with the regional people from Yukon on a regular basis. I have not, as Minister, had the Minister-to-Minister discussions about the Dempster. If there was an opportunity to do so in the future, certainly I would take the opportunity to discuss the Dempster Highway with the Yukon Minister. I will get some information from the department. I know that not only the regions but I think at a higher level the departments have communicated. If an opportunity arises where we need to discuss the Dempster, I will certainly take that opportunity.
I don’t think we should be waiting for an opportunity to have those discussions. I think that we’ve got a highway that we’re putting millions, hundreds of millions of dollars into and you want to give people, when they start seeing that, they want to come up and go to the Arctic Ocean and I think as Minister and leader for infrastructure of highways we shouldn’t wait for an opportunity, we should take the initiative and start those discussions. If we’re going to be opening up coast to coast to coast, people are going to have to drive through the Yukon to get up to Tuk and that should be a selling factor right there to the Yukon to say people are going to be driving through your jurisdiction, you guys should put some dollars into the infrastructure as well. I don’t think we should be waiting for an opportunity. It’s something we should be initiating, considering the big infrastructure project we have going right now. Can I just get a commitment or a response? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, the deputies have been in touch and have had many discussions about that highway. I will commit to calling the Yukon Transportation or Highways Minister and have that discussion.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Next on my list I have Mr. Menicoche.
Highway No. 7, Mr. Chair. I’m pleased with the resources available for our Highway No. 7 reconstruction. Perhaps I can just ask the Minister about the current plans for ’16-17 for the amount of money that’s resourced for next year.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The work for 2016 will be embankment improvements from kilometre 20 to 23, and following aggregate production, widening, strengthening and surface prep, drainage improvements from that same spot, 20 to 23, and then we’ll be doing some crushing and aggregate production in a pit at kilometre 3, so I guess it’s at the very beginning of the highway. I’d like to ask if I could have the deputy add to what I’m saying for the work that will be going on on Highway No. 7.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to add that we would adjust the work as required. So, for example, if it’s a wet spring, if we knew it was a certain section that is soft needs to be repaired, then we will adjust the scope of work to take care of those problems. Thank you.
Thank you, deputy minister. Committee, I’d just remind you that we can’t really discuss some of the detailed numbers. If we’re looking for general information, that’s fine, but if we’re looking for detailed numbers for competitive reasons and bidding process, we need to keep it to the general for the capital budget here. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just in terms of highways, culverts, bridges and chipseal overlay project, I know that one of the priorities of my communities is we’re excited to see the ongoing development of chipseal between Providence junction and towards Simpson and we’ve still got quite a bit of a ways to go yet. I’d just like to see what the department’s plans are for continuing chipsealing between Providence junction and Checkpoint. I know that we repaired some of that chipseal, I think it was 18 kilometres from Providence junction towards Fort Simpson, and there’s still another 18 kilometres of chipseal that should be saved. I would like to ask the Minister if they’re going to address that as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For a more detailed response I’d like to ask the deputy to respond to the Member.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do have money underneath the Build Canada Plan for the next four years, starting this year, to reconstruct Highway No. 1. Most of the money will be spent between Fort Providence junction and Checkpoint. We have a program right now to reconstruct and chipseal the section from Jean Marie River access to Checkpoint. Of course, a portion of that’s done already, up to kilometre 395. But with the funding available in the next three or four years, we hope to get that all reconstructed and chipsealed and then we’ll move to Fort Providence and carry on with reconstructing and improving the stretch of chipseal that’s there right now.
The Member will know that we’re having a hard time with keeping chipseal on this stretch of road there. The base of the road isn’t strong enough, so we do have to go in and strengthen that, and then as we do that we’ll put chipseal on it again. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Neudorf. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just with the resources available for Highway No. 1, of course it includes the section between Fort Simpson and Wrigley, and most particularly, from the N’Dulee ferry towards the Willow River Bridge, that particular section never really recovered from all the trucks that were on that road when they were doing the Enbridge Pipeline’s recovery operations. I drove it a couple times this fall already and it really needs some work. I know that there was some planned work for this fall. I’m not too sure what was done, and I know that I’ve seen the engineers on that road inspecting it, so I just wanted to know if some of his recommendations and, of course, the concerns of the Wrigley residents is how much work will be done on that section of the highway.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The section of highway between Fort Simpson and Wrigley we are going to continue to maintain with using our maintenance money. That is a very low volume highway as far as vehicles and that go and we’re not planning on putting a lot of capital or any capital at this time onto that highway. We’re trying to concentrate our capital on the highways that have higher traffic volumes. At this point, we’re going to do the best we can with the maintenance budget to try to maintain that road in the best driving condition that we can maintain it to.
I know that in the past few years that the highway between Fort Simpson and Wrigley there was investment in replacing culverts and almost like mini-bridges, so I’ll just ask one more time if there are any plans for replacing any more culverts towards Wrigley.
In the capital that is one area that we are working where we are working on Shale Creek Bridge. We’re sealing the deck and doing some bearing repairs on the deck, and then we’re also rehabbing the timber on the deck of Smith Creek. We may have been on that one when they were rehabbing that one. They’ll be doing more work similar to that bridge that we had crossed. We’ll be doing work on those two bridges. I don’t know exactly where they are, but I just have the kilometres. I suppose you know Shale Creek and Smith Creek is where we will be rehabbing the bridges.
I think the Minister was talking about some of the bridges on the winter road section which kind of leads towards the Mackenzie Valley Highway Project to the north of Wrigley. I know that when the Minister came with me and we spoke with the Wrigley delegation, that was one of their asks, was can we start doing a small, mini program of highway development past the community of Wrigley, in terms of piecemealing the eventuality of a Mackenzie Valley Highway up the Mackenzie Valley. Just with those thoughts, any work that has been done by the department with respect to that other than the geotech work that was done.
That would be a great piece of work and a great project, no question about it. It would be a big part of the Mackenzie Valley Highway if that was to be built. The community had a very, very good plan. They are in support of the Mackenzie Valley highway and it was important for them to get to the first gravel access. They had indicated to us that it was about 30 kilometres of fairly flat territory that was good ground except for two short areas, two small spots, actually, as they put it on the road where they thought there were some swamps. Aside from that, they thought it was a very easy project to do, and we would support that type of a project as part of the Mackenzie Valley highway. It’s right on the Mackenzie Valley right-of-way, and that’s something we’d love to work towards with the community on the Deh Cho part of the Mackenzie Valley highway.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Committee, we’re on page 84, highways, infrastructure investments, $69.340 million. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This will probably be my last opportunity to talk about Highway No. 3. I know Mr. Menicoche thought I was going to say Highway No. 7 but, sorry. Highway No. 3. We know this is a multi-year project. I believe this is part of a bundle that was being funded here through one of the Building Canada Plan projects. But to get a bit more perspective, what should we expect? What is the budget in terms of the completion? Is there a certain target on Highway No. 3 that we’re going to try to complete for this capital budget?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re scheduled for this budget embankment improvements, kilometre 275 to 278, from 279 to 280, involving straightening and surface prep; drainage improvements and install culverts at kilometre 275, 276, 277, 279, and 279.6; crushing aggregate production at kilometre 285; chipseal kilometre 275 to 278 and 279 to 280.
