Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to follow up on questions that my colleague from the Mackenzie Delta was asking the Minister of Infrastructure about ice bridge construction. Before this session, I met with a number of delegates from the community of Nahanni Butte, and they spoke about the lack of employment opportunities in the communities. One of the concerns was why weren't local residents and the community's equipment used to build the Nahanni bridge crossing. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain the process that is used to build the ice crossing at Nahanni Butte? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think this is going to be an interesting discussion because the Nahanni Butte ice crossing is flooded, dredged, and profiled by the Nahanni Butte Dene band. They already do that work. I know our department brings in the heavy equipment, the Sno-Cats and plow trucks, once they get that up to that speed, and we work with the community on providing their local labour, employments benefits to the community as much as we can.
I greatly appreciate the Minister for that answer in explaining that the community gets it going, but my understanding is that the government takes over. Can the Minister explain: does the GNWT staff, after this road has been built, does their staff look after it afterwards?
As I said, the community is responsible for the construction of the ice crossing through a service contract that they have with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Once an ice crossing is constructed and ice thickness can handle heavy equipment, specialized ice road construction equipment, such as the Sno-Cats and plow trucks, are brought in either from Fort Simpson or Fort Liard. The reason we do this is because the Nahanni Butte Dene band doesn't have this equipment in place. We're there to help them if they were to go out and purchase this type of equipment, that we would certainly look at handing over this portion of the contract to them.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister, and I understand that. The community has come to me and said that they are willing to do this. Will the department look at having the community build and maintain the ice bridge in the future years?
As I've said, we're willing to work with the community if they're willing to go out and purchase equipment. We're certainly willing to hand over the rest of the contract to them to employ their local people and get the most benefit that they can out of it, as much as they can from their community. We're also working with them around their financial management of their contract, as well, and encouraging them to submit invoices in a timely manner so they can recover their costs on a faster basis to be able to help them move this along.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I greatly appreciate the Minister and the department willing to work with the community. It's great to hear, and as always a little bit of work for these small communities has a huge impact on them. The Minister talked about equipment and that, so will the Minister be willing, or his staff, to meet with leadership, discuss this issue, and tell them what they need to do and maybe work with them to see if there is excess equipment out there available for them to take that on so they can continue to work on this bridge?
I can do better than that. I actually had a chance to meet with the Nahanni Butte leadership down at Roundup and we had a sidebar conversation about economic opportunities in their community. We've already decided that, when they're in Yellowknife, they're going to set up a meeting with me to discuss a number of issues, and I will certainly bring this up as part of our conversation with the leadership and try to help them through it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
