Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation some questions about the Mackenzie Valley road. He had a Minister’s speech about it today, and last week I was asking questions on the maintenance of the road.
My first question for the Minister is: What is the current status of the Mackenzie Valley road? Is it closed to nighttime only or have we been able to keep it open all week?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Due to the current temperatures, all of the ice roads that are in our system are currently under normal operations.
Thank you. In the Minister’s statement he talked about ConocoPhillips and industry participating in the road construction. I’m just wondering what kind of feedback we’re getting with these closures from industry. Are they concerned about the length of time and the early closures of these roads?
We are not anticipating early closures. In fact, each year as we build the winter roads they improve. Sometimes it is extreme warm weather for the season and then there could be some problems, but this year we’re not anticipating any problems. We have sent out a communicae saying that there was a possibility, because we want to give industry as much warning as possible. People don’t like to be told things at the last minute. So we like to kind of forecast a bit in advance of what we think we’re going to be doing, but at this time normal operations. Cold weather doesn’t seem to be an issue. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the importance of these roads is obvious. In the beginning, getting them open and then keeping them open as long as we can is very key. That’s the success of the road.
So I guess the question to the Minister is – I also questioned last week about the maintenance – are we continuing to maintain these roads currently or are we shut down on maintenance and letting the weather take its course?
Thank you. All of the maintenance is contracted out to the various contractors in the area and their job is to keep the maintenance up on the road right up until the time when we determine that the road is no longer open and closed to the public. So we’re expecting that the maintenance will continue with normal operations right up until we announce that the road will be closed due to weather. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m a little frustrated with those answers about the maintenance because I’m getting a different story from the Sahtu than what the department is giving us.
But I guess my next question is: What is the department’s communication protocol? I know the Minister indicated in his speech about the website, but how else is the public to know that these roads are shutting down to nighttime only and eventually when they’re getting ready to close? What kind of information are we giving them and what kind of lead time are we giving that it’s going to be shut down within 24 hours or when it’s going to be shut down? Thank you.
Thank you. I think the first vehicles that usually quit running on the roads are the heavy traffic when the season changes and the weather gets too warm where we can’t maintain the road for heavy traffic, but at this time if any industry looks on the website they will see that if we’re talking specifically about the road between Wrigley and Tulita it’s at 64,000 kilograms right now and there’s one detour that’s also marked at Steep Creek, there’s a detour. The road access into Deline is at 50,000 kilograms. Tulita bypass is at 64,000 kilograms. Also, from Tulita to Norman Wells the road is open up to 64,000 kilograms. That’s the highest rating or weight that we have on the winter road, so all of the roads in the Sahtu seem to be functioning normally. The road from Norman Wells to Fort Good hope is at 50,000 kilograms. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
