Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in follow-up to my Member's statement, I have a few questions for the Minister of Infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister, how was the community of Aklavik advised when the open water and the ice road was first discovered and the weight restriction was lowered? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When this came up on a quick and short notice, the local superintendent out of the Inuvik region would have notified the mayor of Aklavik. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
What plans were put in place to finish bringing in supplies that were supposed to come in on the ice road?
I don't know which plans would have been put into place once the roads was closed. That would be up to the local people. It's unfortunate the road closed in a quickened manner. That happened because of safety reasons, but now with the new purchase of the barge company, maybe we can use them.
The ice road conditions are no different than they were last year. Just this year, the department seemed to get a little too -- I don't know, they just got a little carried away this year, but how does a department incorporate traditional knowledge into ice road construction and other infrastructure planning?
Road safety is our number one priority, particularly on the ice road. As I've said in this House a number of times, climate change and things have had a number of impacts on the condition of our ice roads and winter roads in the Northwest Territories. It's unfortunate, like I said, that this happened in Aklavik this year due to safety matters, but if we look at the incident that happened at Deline two years ago, we certainly don't want this type of situation happening particularly on the Beau-Del, where there's great resource for fish in the Northwest Territories, and to have an incident like that would be catastrophic. I'm not an engineer and I'm not an ice profiler, but on recommendation of our superintendent and our people that go out there and profile the ice, this road was closed in that time.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the Minister does specialize in signs and, you know, we could have put signs up in this area. Also, put a berm on half of the road. That could have helped in this area here. So what lessons could be learned from this year's closure of the Aklavik ice road that could be applied in the future especially as winter conditions become more variable? Thank you, Ms. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are always lessons learned in every season. This one in particular, I guess I would say that the lesson learned from this is we're going to have very close ties with the community on a day-to-day basis as spring comes to the region, being that it's the only ice road left up there; we're not going to Inuvik anymore. We'll have better communications around how we're planning on closing of the ice road.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
