Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my colleague Mr. Hawkins’ questions about salt on the roads and the potential environmental impact and significance of that. One only has to travel south crossing the NWT border into Alberta and see the difference on the highways to realize that what they are using in the Mackenzie County in northern Alberta does not work on the roads. If you go to the wreckers in High Level and look at how many totalled vehicles there are in that junkyard you will see how many vehicles roll on northern Alberta’s Mackenzie County highways in the winter, because they are using something more environmentally friendly called potash. It’s some derivative of potash. What it actually does is polish the ice on the road. It does not interact with the ice at normal temperatures as salt would or calcium chloride would and it’s killing people. It is affecting the residents of the Northwest Territories who have to find their way south going over that road. I would ask the Minister of Transportation if he would seek to communicate with his Alberta counterpart who would be responsible for highways, to find out what kind of success they have found in using an alternative to our traditional calcium chloride and salt on their roads.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would certainly look forward to that discussion with my counterpart in Alberta and we’ll get back to the Member once that does happen.
So although we have some scientific data that would indicate that what we put on the roads may be finding its way into our waterways, I think we need to weigh that against the risk to the travelling public when conditions on the road are ice and a different alternative product is used. Perhaps the Minister could also request the stats for the number of serious motor vehicle accidents that have occurred compared to when they used to use a product like salt or calcium chloride before. I’d like to know the comparison of the statistics for motor vehicle accidents in the jurisdictions that have turned to this more environmentally friendly alternative.
I will get that level of detail for the Member, but last year in the NWT there wasn’t anyone that perished on our highways here in the Northwest Territories. I agree with the Member that we need to balance public safety with the environmental concerns. I will get the information for both Members.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mrs. Groenewegen.
That’s good, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
