Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Transportation. Mr. Menicoche talked about the barriers and the bumps to working on Highway No. 7. I’d like to talk about the bumps and barriers to even try to construct a highway up in the Mackenzie Valley.
I want to ask the Minister, has his department put together an economic analysis of benefits as to what dollars we could be looking at if a Mackenzie Valley Highway was put through from maybe to Tuktoyaktuk.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We certainly listened to the Member’s statement with great interest as he did some comparables there regarding the CANOL Trail and how fast that was built.
Mr. Speaker, I have to point out we are all anxious to see this road move ahead. We have had some good discussions with the federal government and certainly don’t want to wait until there’s another war before we see investment, Mr. Speaker.
We have done a lot of work in the life of this government on the Mackenzie Valley Highway, probably more work than has been done for quite a few years. We were able to partner with the federal government on a number of fronts doing some of the research as required. We recognized some time ago that we need to build and develop a business case for this stretch of highway. As part of going forward with that whole concept, we contracted some people to come and do an economic analysis of the road and it has come back very favourable. I would be pleased to share that information with Members if they haven’t seen it already. It would, of course, create a lot of jobs, it would open up the sense of isolation to the communities, and in a lot of the communities it would lower their cost of living. There are a number of things that are looked at in the economic analysis and if the Member hasn’t seen it yet, I’d certainly be pleased to present it to him. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in my research, it took the threat of invasion and the war to ask… Not to ask; I think the United States government said we’re going to come up and we’re going to build a highway west of Norman Wells and move some oil and this is what we’re going to do. When that threat was no longer there, they left everything just as is.
Mr. Speaker, I’m not too sure if this is something that is even possible in the Northwest Territories, in terms of putting some priorities to building a highway up the Mackenzie Valley. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of his economic analysis of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, what type of dollars is in the report. I look forward to him sharing it, but what type of dollars does the analysis come out with, should we build a Mackenzie Valley Highway, some dollars that could be realized? I want to ask the Minister if he could give me sort of an estimate.
Mr. Speaker, I have to apologize to the Member. I don’t have that information in front of me. I do recall that the report that was conducted and the research that was done in the communities came back indicating there would be huge benefit to the communities along the right-of-way. There would be huge benefit in terms of jobs in the area of road construction. There would be a lot of savings to the communities in the cost of living as they’d be able to travel on a year-round road. It would certainly increase tourism. That part of the country is very beautiful, as the Member knows. There are huge benefits, as this document has indicated. I can’t remember specific numbers at this point but I’d certainly be glad to share it, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister has some very talented staff working on this project here and I want to commend him for the hard work as with the Aboriginal groups that have signed on with the PDRs. I want to ask the Minister, in his discussions with the federal Minister, why isn’t there such a priority from the federal Minister to ask Mr. Harper, let’s get some money into the construction phase of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We do appreciate the PDRs. Why doesn’t Mr. Harper say, okay, we’re going to put the dollars that need to be built for the Mackenzie Valley Highway, just as the recent announcement such as the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline?
Mr. Speaker, the concept of a highway down the Mackenzie Valley has been around for many, many years, even from way back as far as the Diefenbaker days. The idea has been brought forward from the Government of the Northwest Territories on many occasions. Almost at every Assembly there’s been strategies developed over the years and they have included the concept of a highway, and we’ve indicated that there is a desire to see this move forward. Documents such as Corridors for Canada were drafted and included highways and to really no avail. It’s our interpretation that maybe we needed to do more work to build a business case, which includes the economic analysis, project description reports that we’re moving forward on.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly don’t want the Member to start thinking about going west when we should be going east to get further investment. I’ve seen and tracked the Member’s ventures on the CANOL Trail over the last three years. He’s been trying to walk that stretch of the highway. He’s shared some of the pictures and he seems to be riding a horse every time.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a real need for the federal government to invest in this highway. We have taken every occasion that we had to bring the case forward. We have tried in different formats. We tried to bring it forward as a sovereignty issue. We brought it forward as a P3 concept. We submitted every project budget that came available from the federal government. Our last several discussions, the Minister has indicated that we just needed to wait and see if there is anything in the budget, so that is where we are at at this point. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, just for the record, I think I rode on the horse for about five minutes. The rest of the 222 miles I walked on the CANOL Trail.
Mr. Speaker, I want to ask again, within the life of this government I know this Cabinet is working hard with its different counterparts, can somehow the message get to the federal government in a short time with the Premier, with the Cabinet Ministers on different fronts and maybe let them know the importance of the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway to the people in the North? The reason why I am asking is I think that the rest of Canada should come up and discover the beautiful Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, we will continue to make every effort to bring the message forward to the federal government that there is a real need for a Mackenzie Valley Highway. We will continue to take the opportunities, whether it is myself as the Transportation Minister or the Premier or the Finance Minister or any other Minister that sits for this government to make the arguments. Mr. Speaker, it may warrant further trips to Ottawa. It may warrant involving other people. We will have to look at that. There are other considerations, of course, in terms of elections and things of that nature, but we are looking at all different opportunities that we can use to impress to the federal government that we need to get some investment on this highway. It may be for portions of it, it may be for a section of it, but I think this whole initiative is going to move forward. We certainly had that formal motion from this House and want to keep it a priority. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
