Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement was on shoreline erosion in the community of Tuktoyaktuk. Over the past summer when I was home I was picked up by my uncle, John Steen, and then we went down and I looked at the shoreline embankment. It’s probably about 75 feet total, but the total from top of the soil to the lake, to the Pokiak Lake, is almost 50 feet. So one bad west wind, Mr. Speaker, where the rock ends, it’s going to open up that whole backend of the community where we have 31 units, including the RCMP, and all the units are going to be opened up to the ocean.
So, Mr. Speaker, where do we start with the Minister on getting extraordinary funding for the community of Tuk and making sure they’re not going to come at me and say use your gas tax money? I want extraordinary funding for the community to see where we start in getting this project for this upcoming season. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won’t tell him to use their gas tax money, but I will say you can use your capital infrastructure money that we provide to the community each year and they identify projects as a priority. I do know for a fact that in the latest capital plan from the community, they have identified some funds to put towards shoreline erosion. There’s no scope of work that’s been determined yet, nor have we had any requests for technical assistance, which we would be more than happy to provide to them. Thank you.
That was on my list, I just didn’t read it on capital infrastructure. It’s not enough, we don’t get enough. But with that being said, I’m asking the Minister now for his assistance in the Department of MACA in Inuvik to go into the community and to meet with the mayor and myself sooner rather than later, because of the rock hauling that’s going to be done. Hopefully it could be in this year coming. So what are the chances of that? Thank you.
Thank you. I could commit to the Member that if it’s the request of the community, we’d be happy to go in there and provide them some technical assistance. I did say before that they have identified some funds in their capital plan to go towards the shoreline erosion, but we’d be more than happy to meet with the Member and the leadership in the community to see what we can do to assist them. Thank you.
Thank you. Today, from the department’s work from the federal agency of Geological Survey of Canada, how long does the Minister think that it will take to claim that area, to think is the centre of town? Thank you.
I’m not quite sure how to respond to that, other than saying I would have to follow up and see what some of the recommendations were, but I will follow up and see what kind of information I can gather. Again, I’ll commit to the Member that we will work with the community to come up with some kind of a plan to deal with the shoreline erosion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister for that and just remind the Minister that I want extraordinary funding and I don’t want it taken out of the gas tax, I don’t want it taken out of the capital infrastructure, because the community has a big task in itself to keep all the buildings going. But I look forward to his department making sure it gets a hold of the community and myself to do this project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We do provide, through the capital infrastructure acquisition or plan, we provide all the money to the communities and this has allowed a lot of communities to deal with some of their infrastructure deficits and some of the infrastructure needs a lot sooner than they would have been able to had it been still part of the corporate plan, and this is just another example of that. You know, as a department, I mean, if we’re aware or we know of any other possible sources of funding out there that could assist the community, then I will commit to the Member that we usually follow any pots of money that we may be able to access on behalf for supporting the community. So we’ll continue to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
