Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, people in my region are concerned about ice roads given the changing climate. My question for the Minister, has Infrastructure been tracking the impact of climate change on the life of our winter roads? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the short answer is yes. And I'm so excited to deliver a Minister's statement tomorrow that talks about some of the examples that we're doing in terms of how climate change is impacting our infrastructure, including our roads. So, yes, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we know to mitigate the impacts of climate change we need resilient infrastructure that is done in collaboration with communities. What planning has occurred to begin to develop an allseason road to the community of Gameti by the Department of Infrastructure, and also to Wekweeti as well? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, building a WhatiGameti allseason road would cost about onethird of a billion dollars. That's a lot of money, Mr. Speaker. But I do want to say that, you know, the Gameti ice road, over the fiveyear average, the opening date has been around February 16th. In 2019, the opening date was March 4th. So I mean, we do have some of the stats in terms of and we track a lot of our roads, allseason, our any of the roads that we do through Infrastructure. We track them. We kind of get a sense of when they open/when they close. I'd be quite happy, Mr. Speaker, to share that information with the Member in terms of some of the roads in the Tlicho region. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I live in the area. A couple years ago I know, due to climate change, the road to the communities, to Gameti was closed early, and to Wekweeti as well. So, yeah, I think she doesn't need to tell me, but we do know because we live there.
So, Mr. Speaker, we see a lot of benefits for energy and food security with allseason roads to our communities. What future planning is being doing to connect all the Tlicho communities to clean and renewable energy? When can the communities of Gameti and Whati expect a transmission line? Thank you.
You thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Infrastructure continuously engages with Indigenous groups. You know, that is one of the things this government has been mandated to do, is to work with the Indigenous groups. In terms of the transmission line so we are proposing to build it's a 60kilometre transmission line that's going to connect the Whati to the Snare system. You know, one of the options that was looked at in the past was the mini hydro project. So we are going to proceed engaging with the Tlicho government. They are in full support of this 60kilometre transmission line. So those discussions are underway. You know, we talked about, you know, how we can partner and how, you know just recently some of the announcements that the Tlicho, as an Indigenous government, is doing to look for some funding. So, I mean, we look forward to these partnerships to continue that collaboration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
