Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of Transportation some questions on the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I understand that the Minister met with some western Transportation Ministers and I wonder if they had any discussion on the National Transportation Policy on this dream of many people in the valley in terms of having some more concrete realities, I guess I could say, in terms of putting the steel to the ground to open up the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I know there were some project description reports done and I think we’re close to going to the second level.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We did have the opportunity to have a discussion in a formal setting with the Westec members in Vancouver on Friday. We also had the opportunity to meet privately with Minister Strahl. We had a very good discussion. We wanted to take the occasion to bring forward the desire of this House to ensure the Minister is aware that we place a lot of priority on the Mackenzie Valley Highway and we also wanted to ensure that the Members of Westec are aware of our desire to move forward. We also had the opportunity to talk about other projects that were in the mix, and some applications that we had forwarded we are looking for some updates.
I want to ask the Minister, there’s support from this House and several industries across Canada and the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister if, when he had his discussion with Minister Strahl, can the Minister inform the House if in his discussions with Minister Strahl he came to why the federal government is not supporting the Mackenzie Valley Highway by putting serious dollars to build it even after the PDRs that we pretty well closed. Why isn’t the federal government supporting this?
At this point I don’t believe that there’s any indication that the federal government is not supporting the project. I think many of the Members are aware that it’s a high priority for the people of the Northwest Territories. We try to have those kind of remarks pried out of the Minister. At this point he’s indicated that we’d have to wait to see what the federal budget announces, if there’s anything there. We followed and worked with the Minister over the last several months to ensure that he’s very familiar with this project. We’ve taken this recommendation that we direct our requests in writing to the federal Minister. We’ve done that. I think at this juncture we just have to wait and see what comes up in the budget.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope the Minister can work with him more in terms of the priority here in the North of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I want to ask the Minister, I know the Premier and Cabinet have made some other recommendations to the Norman Wells initiative on funding the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Can the Minister inform the House if other options have been exhausted? We’re actually begging the federal Minister to put some dollars so that we can have that highway, so that we can reduce the cost of living and strengthen the sovereignty of the Northwest Territories. Does the Minister have any more tricks up his sleeves to put more dollars to this highway?
I think most Members of Cabinet and Members of this government have really been very straightforward with the federal Minister. He’s talked with a number of people; my Cabinet colleagues for sure. He understands where the priority lies with this government on the Mackenzie Valley Highway. He’s worked with us to fund some of the projects, the PDR work that’s necessary to compile all the backup information and baseline studies that are required. He allowed us to move forward more than any other government in our history on this project. I don’t know if there’s any way to make that any clearer. I’ve tried to be at all the federal meetings that he’s at, and every meeting I’ve gone to he’s been very good to us. He’s allowed us a separate side-table meeting in a private room to talk about issues that are challenging us and this is always number one. He’s certainly got the message. At this point I think it’s more in the Finance Minister’s hands rather than Minister Strahl, but that is something we won’t know until the budget is released.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
