Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about the section of Highway No. 1 that goes up to Wrigley. Residents of Wrigley have always brought it to my attention that the maintenance cycle is not what they think it should be. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation what level of attention they pay to this section of the road. Residents often say that they do not maintain it as often as regular, and they do not pay too much attention to that road. I’d like to ask that to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d be more than happy to look into the intervals on maintenance on that section of highway in comparison to other sections. It does have, and I do know this, something to do with the amount of traffic that is on the road, but I will get the information for the Member and then we can do a comparison. If there are issues with maintenance, the Member and the communities can certainly bring that to my attention and we will address that.
I’m glad the Minister offered some kind of mechanism, because that is truly needed. They often bring their complaints either to the ferry operations at Ndulee and/or call the regional office. Often they don’t get adequate responses that they feel they should. If the Minister is offering a route that the community or community leadership can contact his office directly, I’d be pleased to hear about it.
Safety is our number one priority, so again, if the Member feels there are maintenance issues on that section of highway and he wants to bring that to my attention, I would be more than happy to look into those concerns for the Member and for the community.
I guess the key thing is the maintenance cycles. It seems that the department often skips it because of the lower volume of traffic. I don’t think this is right, because this highway is on the national highway system and it shouldn’t be dismissed just because there’s a lower amount of traffic. It’s equally important to that community and for the whole North as well.
The Member brings up a good point and we’ll take that into consideration.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. If the Minister can also provide to me the amount of the operations budget that is going towards that section and a bit of a plan for maintenance for this coming summer and fall.
I’ve got the information pertaining to capital upgrades on that highway, and there is some money that we’ve got going forward. On the detail on the maintenance side of things, I will endeavour to get that level of detail for the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
