Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask questions to the Minister of Transportation in light of the Minister’s comments to the Deh Cho Bridge that we’re out of the water. I think we’re out of the water and may be high and dry on the land, but we’re moving on. I want to ask the Minister about the Deh Cho Bridge situation. There are other bridges to be built in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister, once we’re done -- hopefully we’re done dealing with the Deh Cho Bridge issue here -- that we can focus and concentrate on other bridges in the Northwest Territories. Would the department consider looking at a strategy as to how do we start looking at the other bridges in a serious manner such as the one we’ve been dealing with on the Deh Cho Bridge in terms of having it completed so the people in the rest of the Northwest Territories can also have bridges to cross?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Right now we still continue to work on some of the Mackenzie Valley bridges through the Building Canada funding. I think we are going to have to see the Deh Cho Bridge come to a conclusion and regroup to see and revisit the concept of P3 to see if that’s still something that the Members of this House would support. Failing that, I guess we would have to wait for the federal government to provide money to build the bridges.
If we stay on target and time frame, the completion of Deh Cho Bridge will be November 2011. I hope between now and 2011 the department can give some serious consideration to looking at the other bridges and thinking outside the box, as the Minister says, and being innovative and creative. How do we put together some bridges like the Peel, the Bear, and Liard bridges that need to be looked at? We still need to have a P3 concept proposal in front of us to approve it and go ahead with it. Certainly we have learned a lot there. I’m just asking the department if they would begin some initial discussions on concepts and how do we go about, with the help of Members on this side, to have bridges in the Mackenzie Valley.
I’m glad there are still some fans out there that support the concept of P3. I still think it is a mechanism and tool for us to look at ways we can approach some of our infrastructure that doesn’t involve the federal government coming forward to fully fund a project. We need to do that. We have to take stock of how things have transpired over the last while with the Deh Cho Bridge.
We have certainly a number of bridges out there that would need to be built over the next while. The Liard, and the Peel and the Bear are all part of that, Bosworth Creek. We need funding for those projects, and I think some of those may be included as part of the assessment of the work that’s going to be done through the project description reports that we have embarked on. We’ve signed agreements with the Inuvik-Tuk people and the PDR work is already completed there and the report is available. The Gwich’in has just recently signed an agreement with us to do a lot of work on the lands that they represent. The Sahtu has also moved forward to do some work on a PDR. The Deh Cho has indicated they want to have some discussions on a portion of the Mackenzie Highway, PDR work that needs to be done in the area that their traditional lands are on.
So we would anticipate that that would include bridges and infrastructure that would allow a Mackenzie Valley Highway to be built, so those things would be costed out and those things would be included as part of the package. There are other projects, of course, such as the Peel that is outside of the Mackenzie Valley Highway system and the PDR work that’s being looked at. So I think we have to try to be creative as we move forward. There’s not a lot of room when it comes to projects of that nature and that size, and we have to be able to either attract federal dollars or look at the P3 type where there’s a partnership arrangement. Those things have to be considered and that’s what we have to look at as we develop our new plans. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister, in light of what he said, will the department, sometime within the life of this government, come forward with a bridge strategy in the Mackenzie Valley in terms of the bridges that I listed off, come to us and we could have some discussion and know, hopefully, that we can put as much energy as we have done into the Deh Cho Bridge into the other bridges that we need in the Northwest Territories?
Mr. Speaker, we have put a lot of energy in bridges and upgrading our highways outside of the Deh Cho Bridge. The Deh Cho Bridge, of course, has received most of the attention, but we did a lot of work on the Bear River Bridge, for example, right to the point of where we’re ready to do construction. However, we failed to attract federal investment and the project was priced out of our budgeting ability.
We have, to date, I think, built 39 bridges, mostly in the Member’s riding, so we have put a lot of attention, and, of course, not all of it is recognized and given credit for, but we are working hard on bridges. There are still, I believe, five major bridges that have to have some kind of a strategy included. I can’t guarantee that’s going to happen in the life of this government. Some of it is going to be included in the project description report studies that are being done and those could take up to two years. So there is a time factor and, of course, our term is going to be up in two years. It will be close. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the Minister to certainly have a drive with me on the Sahtu goat trail there and look at our bridges and see what type of repairs and work that needs to be done on them.
Mr. Speaker, again, if the department then would look at the P3 policy -- I know it’s somewhere within the House here, in the committee -- in terms of having that established. We’ve certainly got to look at some creative and innovative ways to start building some of these major bottlenecks into the Sahtu region or the Gwich’in or to the Deh Cho, Nahendeh, sorry, to capitalize on the wealth and the economics that the region could offer to the Northwest Territories. Right now it’s certainly been lacking in terms of what we can contribute to the rest of the GDP in the North here.
I have driven on the road, the Mackenzie Valley, all the way to Norman Wells, a beautiful, scenic ride, a smooth ride. I didn’t see any goats, Mr. Speaker. However, it is a nice ride and there are certainly bottlenecks along the route. There are places that a bridge would address a lot of the concern and extend the season.
The Bear River is a challenge every year. It’s an area that has overflow; it’s an area that takes a long time to construct an ice road. There is a very large detour that we have to build annually and it’s costly. So I would like to be able to, at some point, come forward with some more information as we compile all the work that’s been done. Some of the economic assessments on this highway and others have proven that it’s very beneficial to improve the infrastructure. It lowers the cost of living and it certainly generates a lot of employment and economic opportunities. So that’s something we have to pursue. We are at a point where we have to upgrade all our strategies and that’s what we’ll be embarking on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
