Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My daughter told me that a friend of hers overheard a peripheral conversation with me talking about how wonderful the Ministers were and they said, what’s happening? Is your mother resigning? Anyways, let me assure you I am still alive and well, and I have had too much coffee today so I need to talk about Hay River dredging. I’d like to direct my questions to the Premier today because I do believe that this is an area of federal responsibility, the dredging of the Hay River Harbour, which was, for some reason, vacated by the federal government without due consultation and without due plan in mind when they stopped doing this.
I’d like to ask the Premier, although we’ve had some money from Transportation in our government to look at studies, it’s time to stop the studies. We know what needs to be done. The harbour in Hay River needs to be dredged. Is this something that the Premier could elevate as an issue to be raised with the federal government at his level?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Government of the Northwest Territories, we go to Ottawa and generally try to keep our asks to a manageable level. We focus on the areas of highest priority. I recognize that it’s been almost 20 years since the Hay River Harbour was last dredged, I think it was 1993-1994, and we’re quite prepared to do that in addition to spending money to do some work this summer. We have a small dredging program planned. We will also lobby the federal government.
As I said in my Member’s statement, the threat to the Hay River Harbour is really undermining the spirit and soul of our community and it is posing a serious threat to our residents as well. We cannot afford just to bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best. The Canadian Coast Guard, which amalgamated a few years back with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, has a tremendous amount of infrastructure, vessels, buildings and employees in Hay River. I’d like to ask the Premier if we could broach the federal government with the idea to perhaps, if they can’t set up another Department of Public Works in Hay River to do this, if this is an activity that could possibly be added on to an existing federal, very large department in Hay River, the Canadian Coast Guard.
I think we can do better than that. There are a number of federal funding programs that we can access. We are working with the federal government on a Disaster Mitigation Program which we expect will be rolling out soon. We have our friends at CanNor and, also, there’s another federal funding program that we’re in discussions with the Government of Canada on. We can approach it on all of those venues as well as talking to the federal government about exactly what the Member is suggesting.
When the federal government was located in Hay River with their dredging program under the Department of Public Works, it was an annual event. This was not a one-time thing. I would like to ask the Premier if some of the funding that he’s talking about that may be available through federal programs, if this would be something that would re-establish an ongoing activity in Hay River to see that harbour kept in good condition.
We’ve done some work with our partners, specifically the Coast Guard, I think NTCL, and I think even Midnight Petroleum, and we’ve scoped out the potential costs for a very small dredging program. The cost estimate is about $2 million to $3 million. For a large dredging program it will be about $12 million. The problem, I think, that was identified by Mr. Bouchard, is that there is no existing dredge in Hay River. We would have to go and find one. I think the closest one is in the Columbia River area or we would have to go as far as the Mississippi. I think that if we do ramp up to that level, I expect if we’re going to dredge there, that would be the start so that we could look at it on a more regular basis.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In previous governments the answer that I continued to get from this government is that the dredging of the Hay River Harbour was not their responsibility, it was federal jurisdiction. What I’m hearing from the Premier today is, in fact, that the territorial government may be looking at taking this on on an ongoing basis and taking responsibility. Just to clarify, is that what I’m hearing today?
We are prepared to participate and even contribute some funding as we’re doing for the program this year, but it’s still a federal responsibility and I suspect the federal government would not want to devolve this, which is typically a federal jurisdiction.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
