Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for Mr. McLeod, the Minister of Transportation, in regard to the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I want to ask the Minister in terms of any of the latest updates on seeing this highway being constructed and progress on seeing some work being done in regard to starting the Mackenzie Valley Highway.
The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, we’ve been putting a lot of attention to this initiative that has been supported by our government. We’ve done some very good work in terms of developing the project description reports that are required for the road all the way from Wrigley to Tuk. The federal government has, through the CanNor program, funded the portion from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk. My discussions with the mayors from Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk indicate that has now been concluded. It is being packaged as a report and that is coming forward. There has also been a submission for some dollars and a request for partnership arrangements with the federal government to complete the rest of the road from Wrigley to the Dempster.
Would the process in terms of this Mackenzie Valley Highway, I know there are discussions now between Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik in terms of their ongoing process to see an all-season road made there. Would this process come down into the Mackenzie Valley in terms of connecting from the Dempster down to the community of Wrigley, or Wrigley up the highway in terms of project description funding and environmental assessment? I know the Minister has done an economic analysis of the Mackenzie Valley Highway in terms of the federal government coming forward and stepping up to the plate to support this House. He has asked for a motion in terms of a priority for this government here to construct the road.
We had intended to do two things in the life of this government. The first portion for the Mackenzie Valley Highway initiative is to have an economic analysis done on this whole portion of highway that we’re looking at. The second thing that we wanted to achieve was to have a project description report for the whole portion right from Wrigley to Tuk. We’re well on our way on the Tuk-Inuvik portion. We’re still working on the funding for the rest of it. Once we do have the resources, then we’ll be able to embark on that work. That includes surveying, the alignment, some of the economic scoping, and a little bit of the design that would lay out what the road would look like. The Minister of Indian Affairs will be here today and will be making some announcements. We’re anticipating those will be positive.
In terms of the resources, can the Minister tell me roughly the estimates of the resources and when possibly they could hope for some resources in terms of working on the highway from Dempster to Inuvik or Inuvik to Dempster, somewhere where we’ll start seeing some work in the Sahtu or even in the Gwich’in region?
Without taking the thunder away from the federal Minister’s visit, I can assure the Member that we have been working on completing the PDR for all of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We had anticipated it would take roughly two years and cost approximately $8 million. The work that has been completed from the Inuvik-Tuk portion is proving to be a little more expedient than we had expected. They did the work on that stretch in roughly a six or seven month period. We expect that we’ll move a little faster than we had originally provided time for. But we’ll be having a get-together and some announcements made by the federal Minister this afternoon. So without having to provide too much more detail, I’ll just leave it at that.
Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, replies to budget address (day 2 of 7). Item 12, petitions. Item 13, reports of standing and special committees. Item 14, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 15, tabling of documents. Item 16, notices of motions. Item 17, notice of motion for first reading of bills. Item 18, motions. Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, second reading of bills. Item 21, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 2, Forgiveness of Debts Act, 2009-2010; Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act; Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Summary Conviction Procedures Act; Tabled Document 62-16(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2010-2011, with Mr. Bromley in the chair.
