Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thirty-seven years ago when I arrived in Hay River we had a daily 737 jet service and we had daily Greyhound bus service. Our population has not decreased but our transportation services sure have.
Today we are only served southbound by air with Northwestern Air Lease five days a week on a 15-passenger plane. A round trip costs between $800 and $1,000. The option, of course, exists to fly to Yellowknife on Buffalo or First Air, and catch one of the four carriers that fly out of Yellowknife on their ever popular seat sales. That is also not a cheap option for people in Hay River.
The deterioration of transportation services is further evidenced by the announcement that Greyhound will be pulling out of Hay River as of October 24th with their passenger service. Greyhound says they were losing too much money. Maybe bus service isn’t the quickest and most comfortable way to travel south, but it was a great alternative for people who had the time and didn’t have the financial resources to fly. Some people have medical conditions that make air travel a problem, and some of us don’t actually even like flying.
It was a great option for students coming and going from holidays, and seniors on fixed incomes. It also connected Hay River to the Greyhound network that allowed passengers to travel into the Northwest Territories on Canada-wide passes. In the winter, many Asian students attending ESL, English second language, schools in southern Canada had an affordable means of crossing into the Northwest Territories, mostly for Aurora viewing. The Greyhound bus service has also provided an agency opportunity for Hay River, through Frontier Coachlines, for many years, and Frontier Coachlines also provides further bus service out of Hay River, north, east, and west.
Greyhound says that they could not afford the northern route, but suggests that smaller operations will step into the newly opened market and take over some of the Greyhound routes even though they plan to continue carrying freight, taking away a lucrative part of that market. Greyhound is a national institution and a service. What next? Is Canada Post going to come up here and say it costs too much to operate in the Northwest Territories? We’re privatized and we’re deregulated, let’s pull out of the Northwest Territories and only cherry pick the lucrative markets.
I believe that our government had a role to play in addressing this particular problem. I’m going to have questions for the Minister of Transportation on what our government said about this, because I understand that Greyhound still plans to go to Whitehorse and the Yukon. They lobbied hard. Did we? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
