Mr. Speaker, the people of Dettah have resided here since time immemorial. They form a community which has seen much change, and they have tolerated much deterioration of their environment: the water, the air quality, the health of their nearby food resources like fish and waterfowl. They are holders of a unique and valuable way of seeing our world. Yet despite this and despite their proximity to the capital, the 11-kilometre gravel road to their community remains as unsafe or worse as the road to Behchoko was before the recent resurfacing of that highway.
The road to Dettah was last resurfaced with chip seal that was about as thick as a poker chip. This road receives much less traffic than the adjacent Ingraham Trail, with its tens of thousands of B-trains and so on. Despite this, and not surprisingly, the chip seal of the Dettah Road had a brief lifetime, measured in months. Having had frequent experience driving the Dettah Road, I can personally attest to the road’s unsafe condition. Several times, though driving at moderate speed, I found my car wanting to crow-hop into a sideways shuffle down the road — an unsettling and certainly unsafe experience as a result of the corrugated and rutted surface.
Mr. Speaker, I am not asking for 100 kilometres of resurfacing here. I simply ask that we give the people of Dettah their due and provide these patient people with an appropriately resurfaced — and reconstructed, if need be — and safe 11-kilometre road to their community.
I will be asking the Minister of Transportation questions on this. Mahsi.
