Mr. Speaker, I wish to talk about the Highway No. 1 emergency road closure on May 4 and 5, 2008. There were a couple of washouts that caused great inconvenience and distress to Nahendeh travellers. I do want to say that I do recognize the travelling public and safety of transportation infrastructure is key. But what happened in this instance is that information to the travelling public was very lacking. I don’t believe there was any strategy in place for this road closure, for this emergency.
Many constituents called my office repeatedly, stating that they had no answers. They had no knowledge of when the road was going to be opened or resumed or if it had, indeed, been closed.
For instance, I had two busloads of children returning to Fort Simpson from a hockey tournament in Grande Prairie. They had phoned ahead. Everything seemed to be fine. They arrived in Hay River only to be told the road was closed. They were quite infuriated, because they did phone ahead. Somebody should have informed them at that time that there were potential problems on the road. They would have made alternative arrangements to drive back to Fort Simpson, which they did, Mr. Speaker. They waited around and tried phoning people all day. They made many, many calls to the Transportation offices in Hay River and Fort Simpson but didn’t get any answers. So they made a decision to drive from Hay River back to Grande Prairie over to Fort St. John up to Fort Liard and back to Fort Simpson, that way having an extra two days of travel and 17 hours of inconvenience just to get the children and the parents and the coaches back to Fort Simpson.
Once again I’d just like to reiterate, Mr. Speaker, that a better, more efficient communications strategy, on-time updates and a contact point or call centre would have alleviated this. Not knowing is the worst thing for people, and timeliness of information is also important. This is an incident that my constituents are not happy about to this date. I did get a response from the department, but the events did not correspond to the report given to me.
Mr. Speaker, I think we can go back and forth on this issue, but I think it’s more useful to me that the Minister….
Mr. Menicoche, your time for the Member’s statement has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
Unanimous consent granted.
I think we can go back and forth and dispute facts, but it’s more useful to me and my constituents that the Minister of Transportation be aware of this. I look forward to a better prepared communication strategy for the next event.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
