Thank you, Madam Speaker. On October 25th, 2022, the Minister brought her assistant deputy minister for energy into the House to talk about prefeasibility work in June of this year for hydro projects such as the one in Gameti. They said they would be working with the Tlicho government on technical studies in next fiscal year.
Can the Minister commit to completing a feasibility study to see what the cost would be to connect residents along Highway No. 3 to the new electrical grid? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister for Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the Member is correct. We did have a meeting with the Tlicho government to advance the project. The phase that we're working on right now is to be advanced, which includes some of the preliminary planning. There is design, consultation, engagement activities, environmental baseline studies, and also development of a refined capital costs estimate. And I think that's really important, Madam Speaker, as we advance these projects. We need to ensure that the cost estimates are correct so when we go to the federal government looking for some support, that we have uptodate cost estimates. And, yes, I will work with the government and continue to work with the government as I believe that's what we're doing now. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you. On October 31st, I asked the Minister of Finance about the charging station for electrical vehicles coming to Behchoko in 2024. Who are these charging stations for? Is the government more concerned with seeing electrical vehicles on the road along Highway No. 3 over hydro lines connecting Highway No. 3 homes and cabins to the grid? Tlicho residents do not drive electric vehicles because many of us are still using diesel to power our homes. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I'm not sure if I heard a question in there. But I will respond to the Member's comments in saying that, yes, the Minister of Finance did talk about the budget and the electrical vehicles. This is part of our 2030 Energy Strategy, Madam Speaker. These are some of the projects that we need to start doing now to be able to meet targets, meet federal targets. So, I mean, yes, the electrical vehicles will be situated in Behchoko, and our hope is that it would be used for anybody that needs to connect to the corridor to Alberta. So those are our plans right now. Thank you.
Yeah, I did ask who are these charging stations for, but I'll go on to next questions.
The Minister previously told the House in June her department would finalize the routing corridor for the Whati Transmission Line by fall 2022. Did the department meet this target? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, that was our hope. We did look at some of the options on the routing. We're trying to connect the Whati to the North Slave hydro system, to go along the existing winter road roughly about the east to the west side to be able to connect to our current hydro facility directly. So I can get back to the Member in terms of timeline for when we will have it done. Thanks.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. The Minister said the Department of Infrastructure would collaborate with the Tlicho government on the routing corridor. Can the Minister explain in detail what input the Tlicho government have on the project and how they participated? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, how much time do we have? Because we've been doing a lot of having a lot of conversation and if she wants me to go in detail, I can. It'll take some time but I won't. Actually, I will speak a little more about some of the meetings we had the Tlicho government to be able to discuss this project, including the Tlicho government's suggested use of a progressive design build approach. We also which consisted with the GNWT, Tlicho government, Infrastructure cooperation agreement. So we have that agreement in place so that we can work with the Tlicho government and, you know, be able to determine who should lead the different aspects of this project, and I think that's important to involve Tlicho government in this. They provided the GNWT with the proposal to initiate some of the technical refresh study to identify an acceptable routing corridor for the project, also update the cost estimate as I mentioned. So the GNWT and Tlicho are working together in a partnership to do this study, which started in May. And fall is not over. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
