Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, residents are concerned about ice roads given changing climate. How is the Department of Infrastructure currently mitigating the impacts of climate change on our winter and ice roads? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the last several seasons of the ice road certainly have been very challenging. They're starting later, and the roads are deteriorating sooner. As a result, the department has taken a number of measures. For one, and in fact I believe the Monfwi riding is one where they are leading in terms of having studies and better studies done of the permafrost of exactly what's going on to understand what's going on with our roadway systems. We are trying to get out and get the roads in earlier. They are able to try to build up faster so that they can move more equipment, more fuel, more things on a shorter season. And, Mr. Speaker, I can say that, particularly in light of what's happening in the Sahtu right now, we're also -- wanted to make sure we are doing everything we can to maximize the efficiency of the drivers and the trucks, so wanting to improve our working relationship in the private sector, reaching out to the mines -- we've obviously been doing this for many years -- all in an effort to make sure that we maximize the road time that we do have to get resupply in. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the information. So what is the average cost of building and maintaining the winter road to Gameti from January through March annually? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't know the per kilometer cost of the winter road offhand. I certainly can get that. There's different costs for some of the different roads as well, so I'll make sure that I'm getting the one for that stretch, and I'll commit to get that back to the Member here quickly. Thank you.
Thank you. What planning has occurred to begin to develop an all-season road to the community of Gameti by the Department of Infrastructure?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, an all-season road to Gameti is not currently in the Infrastructure acquisition plan for the immediate future for the Government of the Northwest Territories. I'm certainly alive to the concerns the Member is raising and, again, you know, we're seeing what kinds of challenges we have but at this point, Gameti is not in line for an all-season road. They are still relying on the winter roads system and air freight as a backup. We are right now working with the Tlicho in terms of trying to make sure that that winter road gets put in, and the costs of that are, indeed, quite significant. So for now, we're just going to try and make sure the systems that we do have in place are actually working to the best of the abilities that we have. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With that in mind, what she just said, can the Minister commit to a feasibility study or cost benefit analysis for an all-weather road -- access road to Gameti? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to make that commitment here today. Again, I'm live to the challenges of transportation infrastructure in the North and the fact that we are challenged with our transportation infrastructure in the North, but doing a feasibility study at this point, given the challenges that we're having and given that we're right now trying to get the Mackenzie Valley Highway done, it may well be that we're in a situation where we want to get one thing done and then we can move on to looking at the next. But at this point, that's not a project that is on the near horizon. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from the Deh Cho.
