Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today about the proposed Inuvik-Tuk highway, my questions are for the Minister of Transportation. The questions that have been asked by my colleagues this afternoon are a perfect segue to the questions that I’m going to ask. I mean, when I hear people talking about where are we going to get money for the new hospital, a stand-alone college, reconstructing Highway No. 7, everybody’s on the same page today. We all want big capital projects.
With respect to the Inuvik-Tuk highway, I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation what is the total capital budget of this government, not for all capital but in relation to transportation infrastructure and roads. What is the annual budget?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We were just before the House earlier this session with the Department of Transportation’s capital plan. On highways it was just over $23 million.
We are proceeding along with spending money to look at the feasibility and viability of building an all-weather road from Inuvik to Tuk. But even if the project came in at $200 million and the federal government put in $150 million, I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation where is our government going to get their share?
The project would be connected to the increase in our borrowing limit. We would access that to put our portion of the construction of that road.
We would borrow money for our share of that road construction. What puts this project in a different category than borrowing money for any project of all the priorities that have been talked about here today and talked about every day when it comes to the aspirations of the people of the Northwest Territories? What puts that project into the borrowing category?
Mr. Speaker, what puts this project in that special light is the fact that Canada is one of the only countries in the circumpolar world that doesn’t have road access to the Arctic Ocean. Certainly, that is something that the federal government felt, from a security and a sovereignty standpoint, was something that they wanted to see happen.
We will have a road network in this country that will go from coast to coast to coast, finally, with the construction of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway. It is a project that the federal government deems of having national significance. It is a partnership. The federal government is committed to the $150 million. We do need to, once the environmental assessment is done in the new year, sit down with the federal government on the funding arrangement. Our hope is that it would be 75-25 cost sharing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Your final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister speaks of the desire of the federal government from a sovereignty point of view to have this road built. What about the aspirations of the people of the Northwest Territories? How are we going to calculate whether the significant capital investment of this government and the ongoing costs to maintain and upkeep this road is in the interests of the people of the Northwest Territories? By what process are you going to gauge that, given all of the competition of these capital dollars? How are you going to find that out? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, on an annual basis, we do go through the business planning process. The leaders in the Beaufort-Delta have certainly been talking about the Inuvik-Tuk road for a number of years now, decades in fact. We see it as the first stage in the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway that will be integral to the economic growth and success of this territory.
It is something that, with a partnership with the federal government, we feel that we can get it done. It is in an area of our territory right now, in the Beaufort-Delta, where there is not a lot of equipment moving, there is not a lot of work and it is economically depressed. We feel that a project of this size, this magnitude, will really invigorate the region, get people to work and also help with the cost of living in the community of Tuktoyaktuk and any goods that are flown out of Tuktoyaktuk to other communities in the Nunakput riding. We do see the advance of exploration of both onshore and offshore with the development of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway as something that is desperately needed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
