Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to propose a motion. I move, if I may, that this committee strongly recommends that the government take immediate action to identify the multi-year funding necessary to complete construction of the Detah access road beginning in fiscal year 2014-2015.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’re just going to circulate that motion.
Committee, the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, I’ve been bringing this up for seven years now. Just a little bit on the history. The original construction of the Detah road was very shaky and I know the department is aware of this. It was actually thrown in very quickly at the recommendation of the member of the royalty that had visited Detah during the springtime during the breakup and ended up having a harrowing dog team ride across the deteriorating ice. So he was motivated to lobby very hard and, successfully, this road was put in, but it was put in without much planning or engineering and so on. So, it’s well recognized that it needs to be reconstructed.
It’s costing the residents of this small community of Detah, and at certain times safety issues. I appreciate the department responding when those are reported to the department. Over the decades they have been pretty good responding on a temporary basis to put the band-aid on and run the grader over and so on, but it has been costing people in certainly their vehicle maintenance and tires and so on. Those are real items.
The reconstruction has been on the books now for decades. Yellowknives Dene First Nation, over that period of time, and in the most recent decade has developed the expertise in highway construction and has a demonstrated ability for highway construction. In fact, I believe they sort of broke their teeth on this highway with some support that was finally found during the 16th Assembly to initiate the project. But again, this project was not funded specifically and that’s been the problem from the word go. Just as the Minister’s proposal is right now to seek dollars, he hopes to find dollars, no, we’re saying now, let’s put a definite plan in place to get this project started and started this coming fiscal year. Don’t let this thing waffle along on the possibility of surplus funds if another project comes in under budget. Obviously, that hasn’t happened for decades. So some real firm action is needed.
Since we started this project, we realized the costs are actually very modest and we’re speaking in the order of $1.5 million to $2 million a year for two or three years would be significant enough to finish this project. Despite that and then perhaps that’s why it’s been sloughed off to the possibility of surplus funds and so on, or if we hope to find funds in corridor six, blah, blah, blah.
So I guess I’ve appreciated the support of my colleagues throughout the years and most recently to elevate this project from the backburner sort of when we happen to have surplus funds category to this is a priority. It’s a small but important project so let’s get it done category.
The current highway budget, as I’ve mentioned, and as Members know from looking at the numbers, is so unbalanced that if it was a flat sheet of plywood on the floor, the plywood would be standing up on one corner it’s so unbalanced, almost 80 percent going to one brand new project. That’s amazing. I don’t know where people’s heads are when they come up with that sort of distribution of budget, given the needs such as this in the Territories. Again, modest dollars required.
So we do need new dollars to do this project, but we know that there is potential within the budget to have that reallocation. So I don’t think we necessarily have to have new dollars to commit to this project, as much as make sure the dollars are committed from this year’s budget.
That’s all I have to say, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this motion and I’ll appreciate my colleagues’ support. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to point out that when Mr. Bromley started his comments, he was chastising Transportation for having too much money in this budget. Now he wants to get a motion to put more money into Transportation, creating a bit of cognitive dissidence on our part. But nonetheless, Cabinet will abstain. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. To Mr. Miltenberger’s comments about this adding funding to the budget, I thought I clearly heard Mr. Bromley say that money could be reallocated from a project that takes up an extremely large chunk of the Transportation budget, take $1 million and put it into this particular Detah road that he’s asking for. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Thank you, committee. Again, we’re on 9-10 in your activity summary, capital estimates. Continuing on with questions on this activity, I have Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to have some final opportunity for a question that I had for the Minister. It’s in regard to the junction on the south side of Fort Providence that leads off to Fort Simpson, then on to Enterprise and on to Hay River. Of course, at this point, it has a gravel quarry and it’s pretty close to a forestry tower. In fact, it’s in earshot from the base of the tower. I just wanted to know what is the status of that quarry and what are the plans for that quarry. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. For that we’ll go to Mr. Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Work in quarries, of course, is tied to requirements for gravel related to O and M funding, related to capital funding. In this particular case, because the highway in that area is already chipsealed, it would be related to any capital funding we had in our budget for it. I’m not aware of any specific work in that quarry right now, but we can certainly follow up with the Member and provide him some details on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s all.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Committee, we’re on 9-10, Transportation, activity summary, highways, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $86.075 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. On page 9-13, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a question here. There’s an expenditure for the Motor Vehicle Information System upgrade and I have a recollection that we’ve been doing this for a while, I think. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could advise if this is a multi-year project, is this the second year of a multi-year project or the first year, and if it is only the first year, is it a one-year project. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have been working on our Motor Vehicle Information System for several years. The first objective was to get it onto a more stable platform and the next objective was to rebuild the system. We did that module by module, so the new software is now on a stable platform and it is modern and up to date and we can move forward. The way we’d like to move forward is by providing on-line services.
We, in the current fiscal year, are in year two of a two-year project to provide on-line services and we hope later this year to be rolling that out. The biggest on-line service to be provided will be vehicle registrations. There are other things, including scheduling of exams and appointments, and driver abstracts, as well, would be available on-line.
The money that’s in the capital plan here, $650,000, it’s then to do another phase of on-line services. We do want to keep expanding the number of on-line services that we have available to the public. The biggest part of this would be, actually, on-line services rates as commercial vehicles permits and their operators, but there are a number of other different projects there as part of the on-line services.
Only one year is in the capital plan. We still need to work with the CIO, the chief information officer, to solidify our submission so that we can show all three years of that capital plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Ms. Bisaro.
No, that’s good. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, again, 9-13, Transportation, activity summary, road licensing and safety, infrastructure investment summary. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are related to licences in terms of small communities. Recently it has been brought to my attention that a person did try to, a young person in particular, did try to get their licence on numerous occasions, and the facility that they have on the highways camp is used, and of course, it’s used as the headquarters of the staff, the personnel that work at that camp. The concern that was brought to my attention is that after several attempts, it became very apparent just the distractions of the noise level within that building was perhaps the cause of this student maybe trying for the third time and then finally succeeding to get their licence after about four tries.
The point is that there is a lot of traffic within that little office that they have. Are there, perhaps within the future, plans to perhaps expand that office so that people within the community there could have a proper facility and at least a level of quietness where they could focus and ensuring to get their driver’s licence? Are there plans, perhaps, to maybe have the facility expanded in the future for providing that service? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. For that we’ll go to Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his question. We’ve looked at that facility the Member talks of and we have made some improvements to the facility. I want to assure the Member that some of those improvements have been made. If the Member has specific concerns going forward, I’m more than happy if the Member wants to bring those concerns to our attention. We have no plans to expand the facility, but like I’ve said, we’ve taken some steps to improve things there. If the Member hears any further complaints or concerns, please bring them to our attention and we’d be more than happy to look at those. Thank you.
Can the Minister explain what kind of steps they’ve made to improve the situation? Was there an addition added?
We didn’t do an expansion there, but for the specific improvements – and all I am aware of is there have been some improvements – I’ll go back to the department and we’ll endeavour to get a list of the improvements to the Member.
Again, committee, we are on 9-13, Transportation, activity summary, road licensing and safety, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $850,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, if I can get you to return to the department summary page. This is 9-2. Transportation, department summary, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $90.4 million.
Agreed.
Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.
---Defeated
Ms. Bisaro.
