Thanks, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to get to a second round of questions around the climate change draft action plan. So the Minister for ECC spoke to the fact that some of the actions I'm interested in are for the Minister of Infrastructure, so I'll ask the Minister of Infrastructure now.
Specifically, I'm interested in the unfunded action items that are talking about transportation planning studies, for petroleum product storage capacity in our remote communities, and completing a climate assessment and planning study to optimize barging operations with MTS. These are all really crucial things. Can the Minister please explain how we are seeking out funding on these crucial items right now? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect to transportation planning studies, we are in discussions with Transportation Canada. They are aware of the challenges of the North. We've raised the number of regulatory problems that continue to arise, which do impact costs and impacts opportunity. So we are in contact with them. Again, I can't speak for where or when Transportation Canada might opt to move forward with us, but we have certainly thus far had a good relationship. I'm hopeful that they will see the need to better understand a region of the country that is unique and distinct from a lot of our southern colleagues.
With respect, Mr. Speaker, to petroleum product storage, again, given the isolated nature of the energy grids and given the need to have ongoing fuel storage in these communities for basic electricity and basic heating, we are, again, speaking rather long term to the federal government in this regard.
There is some opportunity here, Mr. Speaker, ourselves, and it was actually in our own capital budget here, for doing some work in terms of understanding the metering and dispensing equipment in some of the small communities all around the Northwest Territories. This is really to look at the way that we're managing our fuel systems. It's not quite the same as storage but to highlight it here, Mr. Speaker, we need to get a handle on what we're doing to manage our storage capacity. And so that is an important item that is actually in this capital budget should it get approved. And, Mr. Speaker, with respect to longer term, we are looking to move money under the Disaster Mitigation Adaptation Fund with Housing, Infrastructure, and Communities Canada because, again, if we can be preventing fuel storage issues by having better adaptation in these small communities, that could very well fall under that funding pot, and we're hopeful that they'll give us the permission to move the money around and allow those projects to continue.
Last but not least, third item on the third question, Mr. Speaker, was with respect to marine transportation services. Mr. Speaker, I don't have a line on where the money might come for work there. I can say that there's a lot happening at MTS right now to try to move themselves to a longer, more sustainable way of delivering their services, and that is, I expect, to come forward shortly as a result of the review that had been underway previously. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
