Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the government take immediate action to identify appropriate and ongoing levels of funding to support the development and expansion of the Mackenzie Valley winter road system beginning the fiscal year 2014-2015.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. We’re just going to circulate the motion quickly.
Committee, the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The motion speaks to the support that’s needed in the Mackenzie Valley winter road system. Looking at the infrastructure and hearing the Minister talk, I appreciate his continuous effort to negotiate with the oil and gas industry and seeing what they’re going to do to support their operations. It’s in their best interest to seek the most advantageous road system going up from Wrigley to Norman Wells. Sometimes I wonder if the oil industry wasn’t there, then we wouldn’t have much additional dollars here. I’m wondering if this here is we’re relying on the oil company to help us out in this area here, and sometimes that’s not too good because we’re waiting for them, because in here we really have nothing. If the oil industry walks away and says sorry, we’re not going to negotiate as much as you think and they can give you whatever reason. But we are relying on the oil and gas industry to help us with the infrastructure. It should be ours. This is a public winter road system that we should be able to put money in to help with the road.
I do know that they’re hoping that the federal government would approve the Corridors for Canada III for future funding, and the Bear River, the Oscar and Bosworth are bridges that certainly need attention. The Bear River is close to $7 million. Oscar needs to be rejigged and put back in to its proper place. The Minister and I drove past that bridge last year and it’s a bridge certainly sitting there doing nothing. If you want to look at efficiency of the government’s and taxpayers’ dollars, it’s just sitting there while we have to go around. We want to really look at those types of situations. The Bosworth is just outside the roads of Norman Wells.
Again, I ask for support because there are going to be a lot of trucks on the winter road. Safety is number one. There were a lot of close calls on the winter road last year. The Minister outlined some provisions to have some safety mechanisms in place. It’s good in theory, but in practicality, when you drive that winter road, you drive it, actually, for dear life. The government needs to put some infrastructure and straighten out those roads, straighten out those bends, and look at those hills. It has to be done. It’s no different than any other road in the Northwest Territories. I think my people in the Sahtu, their lives are worth it. I’m asking this motion here to ask the government to reconsider, and I would appreciate the support from all Members. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be supporting the motion here. I appreciate my colleague bringing this forward. This relying on industry…(inaudible)…policy, as we heard during our tour in the Bakken from just about everybody not to rely on industry, don’t be controlled by them. In fact, take control and make them participate and so on. We heard a lot of horror stories last winter, and I know the Minister and the Member for the Sahtu described some of the close calls they actually witnessed, and we’ve all heard stories from people who drove the highway and observed people or truck drivers and their trucks falling down hills, and in one case even abandoning the truck when it started to slide down the hill. These sorts of accidents.
We know that industry ignored the rules and the regulations for the use of the ice road and were ignorant about that, and I know the department’s been working on that, and I think maybe late in the game we did try to get some enforcement going out there, but this is pretty classic stuff. Now we are talking about moving into a season where we are actually going to be moving toxic hazardous materials over the road in large quantities with large, wieldy pieces of equipment, so the costs are going up. The stakes are much higher.
During our tour, again, we heard from the medical emergency people that the sorts of accidents that you see with this sort of activity are, as they described in their words, grotesque, horrific, like a war zone. These are big, awkward pieces of equipment, often with hazardous materials and it’s not pretty. In fact, like a war zone, they said. They were having to treat more and more people for emergency medical providers with post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of attending these accidents. I think we are treating this pretty lightly. I appreciate, again, the attention that my colleague Mr. Yakeleya is bringing with this motion, to try and learn from the lessons of others and get ahead of the game here. I know the Minister is also aware of this information. It was his tour that we were on when we heard this information. I appreciated that opportunity. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
We will continue on with activity 9-10. I have Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to make reference to the matter in terms of how it is that priorities are set in terms of the highways and construction and, of course, the maintenance.
How does the department deal with the various winter roads across the North? Some perhaps could be a higher priority than other areas. Some could be abandoned. What is the position of the Department of Transportation?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. For that I’ll go to Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would, of course, look at the winter roads and the provision of services on those winter roads. We try to treat them all the same, but in the case of an area like the Sahtu with all the activity that is going on there, obviously we have had to do more in that area because of the number of trucks going across the winter road.
I’m not sure if the Member has a specific question. We would be more than happy to try to answer it. We maintain. We build I think it is close to 1,500 kilometres of winter roads in this territory every winter. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, the question that I wanted to ask is whether the department will continue the maintenance of the winter road access, previously the winter crossing west of the Deh Cho Bridge in Fort Providence. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, yes. We have a priority to maintain the main highway system here in the NWT. I’m aware of the Member’s request for the department to maintain that access that was previously there prior to the construction and opening of the Deh Cho Bridge last November. We have a letter that is going to be coming to the Member, suggesting that the community look at opportunities through the funding that they have, the Community Opportunities Fund that’s funded on an annual basis by the GNWT, and I had a chance to discuss that letter earlier with the Member.
I will go back to the department and see if there is a way. I’m not sure exactly what it would cost to maintain that portion of road, but that’s something we will take a look at. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I am encouraged by the Minister’s reply. The other area that I was interested in is the proposed pullout between I believe it’s Paradise Gardens and Enterprise. What is the project scope, the details, the schedules in terms of seeing it realized? Perhaps before the summer?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. For that we’ll go to Mr. Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We, with some funding this year already and then with some additional funding next year, want to construct a pullout on Highway No. 2, kilometre 18, a place where trucks can be pulled over for inspection purposes, or if we have to close the highway because of a wide load, then we can use that as a place to hold other traffic that might be travelling on the road.
We have a site selected. We are going through the design. We will purchase materials this year and then actually construct that pullout, including chipsealing the surface next year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Has the department initiated any discussions with the community of Enterprise or even the neighbouring community of the reserve in terms of the project scope and how they can be involved? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. For that we’ll go to Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t believe we’ve had any discussions with the neighbouring communities, but that’s something we could certainly undertake. Thank you.
That’s all. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. We are moving on with questions on this activity. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just back to highways. I mentioned a number of times that the community of Aklavik would like to see a project to Willow River to their access source. I just wanted to raise that and hopefully we could see that in the budget before our term ends. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue for the road to the gravel source at Willow Lake is an issue the Member has brought up a number of times in the past. It is something that we continue, as a department, to work with the community. We have funded them in the past for $250,000 through the Community Access Program. We have also helped them develop PDR work on the road itself. We had I believe it was $100,000 toward a study on a bridge crossing. It was expected that that bridge would cost somewhere around $300,000, but it is expected that the bridge on that road alignment would cost about $1 million now. So the total project would come in at around $19.2 million.
We still are interested in working with the community of Aklavik to see that project happen. Certainly today we don’t have the capital dollars to allow us to commit to that project. We do want to work with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, and perhaps there is an opportunity to advance the project through new Building Canada money or gas tax funding, as well, as those are opportunities that may present themselves to the community of Aklavik.
I must say that our long-term goal is to connect the community of Aklavik to the Dempster Highway at some point in time. We will continue to look forward to that day when it does come. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Moving on with questions on this activity page, I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first question I have on this page is related to Highway No. 3. I don’t see any capital dollars being directed towards Highway No. 3. I think we know, and Mr. Neudorf has said many times, that it’s about the worst highway, most challenging highway in the Northwest Territories. I know there has been some really steady work on this highway and that I believe we have a little bit of research going on out there, too, trying to assess out what some more long-time solutions are, but it continues to be challenging to this day.
There are a number of people, a number of my colleagues that have made comments on the status of this highway and that it is a safety issue. Frankly, I was shocked to not see any dollars, recognizing that this is a very thirsty highway. It can soak up dollars like crazy, but for good reason. We have shown to fairly consistently put some money into trying to address the worse issues on a short-term basis so that we are preserving the safety of people. It’s the busiest highway, I believe, in the Northwest Territories.
I wonder if we can get some comments from the Minister. What about the safety of the people using Highway No. 3? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The highway remains safe. We have made the effort to lower the posted speed limit on that highway.
The Member is right; it has soaked up a tremendous amount of capital dollars over the years, and is in constant requirement for funding for maintenance and maintenance work. The work has been studied on maintenance. We are doing research on the road itself, again, to try to mitigate the impact climate change has had on that highway. We’ll have to continue to put money into that highway. Through Corridors for Canada III we’re looking at another investment to rehabilitate the highway, somewhere around $40 million. So it’s another substantial investment in that highway.
Again, I’m going to sound like a broken record, but there’s not a lot of money to spread around in this capital budget when it comes to highways. It’s very bare bones. It is $90 million, but if you take out the Inuvik-Tuk highway, there’s not a lot of money to go around to other highways in the Northwest Territories and that includes Highway No. 3 in this instance. Thank you.
The Minister made many interesting statements there. First of all, safety, I would say, is an issue, and I can back that up with however many people the Minister would like me to bring as witnesses. It does, as the Minister said, take constant maintenance to maintain safety conditions on this road, and here we have a break in that constancy.
It would be very nice if we could just wait while we pursue these other funds, Corridors III or IV or whatever. But I’m afraid the conditions on this highway don’t stand aside and wait for the Minister to come forward with those dollars.
I think the Minister captured it; we just don’t have the money to spread around. No, no, we have lots of money. We have probably never had bigger highway budgets than this. But we are choosing, as the Minister said himself, to pour that into one new project at the expense of all kinds of facilities in the Northwest Territories, highways. Again, I don’t accept that. That’s their reasoning, when the evidence is clear here. The Minister is aware of the need for maintenance, and yet here we go putting 80 percent of our transportation budget, incredibly, into a new project. Does the Minister have any comments? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I can assure Members that I know there are folks out there and the Member wanted to bring some witnesses, but the highway is safe. Highway No. 3 is safe. If you look at the collision rates between 1993 and 2012, collision rates per million vehicles have gone down over half in terms of the volume of collisions on Highway No. 3. I think that means that our highways are safe. We have statistics to back up the fact that there aren’t as many collisions on that road as there were in the ‘90s and that number has been steadily coming down.
The Member seems to… I don’t know if something is not quite connecting, but we had $200 million put forward by the federal government earmarked for the specific project the Member talks about, the Inuvik-Tuk highway. We don’t have the ability to take any of that $200 million and move it around to Highway No. 3, 8, 7, 6, 1 or 4. You name the highway. We can’t take that money and move it around. That’s not something we’re able to do.
We’re in the process of this funding with the federal government that’s going to see $200 million flow through to the GNWT so that we can build the Inuvik-Tuk highway. That’s the status of that $200 million and we don’t have the ability to move it around.
I think maybe some Members are under the assumption that we can just take some of that money and move it around. That can’t happen. That’s why you see the budget the way it is and we are going to carry forward.
I have to say this, as well, Mr. Chairman. This is the first year in probably the last eight or nine years – and I’ve been here almost 10 years now – that we haven’t had a federal funding program available to us to invest in our highway system in the Northwest Territories. We’ve had that opportunity in the past. This year we just don’t have anything to avail ourselves of when it comes to federal funding programs. It’s kind of that grey zone between us getting new funding programs and the other ones lapsing. So we’re stuck right in the middle, and this capital budget that you see in front of you for Transportation is a reflection of the fact that we just can’t rely on that federal funding this year. We have some, and yes, it’s earmarked for the Inuvik-Tuk highway. That’s the stark reality that we’re living in today.
But we’re hoping to change that with Corridors for Canada III, a $600 million investment in transportation infrastructure across the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Yeah, baloney, Mr. Chair, to the Minister. That’s absolute baloney. We can move dollars around.
The Minister and his staff so far have used three years, four years and five years for this project, depending on what they find with different things, studies that are underway now. So we can simply decide to do this over a longer period of time. We can decide to push for that in this agreement so that we can afford to do the maintenance that’s required in our highway system across the Northwest Territories. Certainly not all of it, but we can contribute significant amounts.
I guess this is the seventh year of my being an MLA dealing with the capital budget, and this is the seventh year, despite my best efforts and support from colleagues, that I don’t see the Detah road being funded. What is the Minister’s reasoning for this? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, the Detah road was not deemed a high enough priority through the capital planning process. I’ve given assurances to the Member that we have the Detah access road and we will have the ability to conclude that project through Corridors for Canada III, that proposal that we’re bringing forward to the federal government. We’re very optimistic that that funding proposal will be approved by the federal government. The Detah road would figure very prominently, right at the front of that plan, should that proposal be successful. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Final comment, Mr. Bromley.
