Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the need for a winter road to Lutselk’e. I have questions for the Minister of Transportation on that. Will the Minister direct his staff to start working on the possibility of a winter road with the community within the next few weeks?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Constructing a winter road into Lutselk’e is not something that we have on our capital plan at this point. We’d have to have further discussion as to routes that the Member or the community is considering and the rationale behind it.
Will the Minister work with his department and the community to complete a feasibility study of a winter road to Lutselk’e?
As the Member knows, there are challenges in looking at construction of an ice road over the lake to Lutselk’e. There are serious issues when it comes to ice conditions and pressure ridges and things of that nature. There’s also the safety of travellers on a lake the size of the Great Slave Lake. We are also monitoring the possibility of future development such as Avalon, which is in a stage where it’s still being considered as to what their plans will be in the long term. We can certainly start looking at routes that might be preferred, that would work, and start costing them out, but it would be very preliminary at this point.
Will the Minister work with the community, then, to determine those routes looking at all the routes? In my discussions with community members, I’ve been given three or four different options, maybe even five different options on what they said would be good routes. Everybody has their reason for doing it. I recognize that the Minister has responded to me in the past about pressure ridges on the lakes. A lot of the possibilities are over land. Can the Minister work with the community to determine the routes and look at all the routes?
We certainly can undertake to do what the Member has requested. There are serious challenges, of course, as to what the mines or exploration companies are going to be doing and that would be something we’d have to have a lot better information. We also would be challenged as to how we would pay for such a road that the Member is suggesting. Those things have to be looked at. I don’t have any problem directing our staff to start having those discussions with communities. There may be other routes that haven’t been considered yet and we’d like to look at that, if we can get that time to discuss it with the members of his community. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister take a look at the preliminary possibilities in the infrastructure plan to construct a winter road in the next capital planning process? Thank you.
I can commit to the Member that we can do some class D costing of what it would take to build a winter road to his community and maybe look at a number of scenarios to see what we’re spending now and what it would cost to do a winter road overland to his communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
