Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that Aklavik is prone to flooding and has had several floods in the last number of years. Also with the challenges in regard to global warming and melting, permafrost, structural challenges in our communities, maintenance of roads, public infrastructure, implementing new capital projects in regard to water treatment plants, airport extensions, shoreline erosion, and dealing with the replacement of the Joe Greenland seniors facility…. These are just some of the capital projects that we are looking at over the next number of years.
But, Mr. Speaker, as we all know, in order to construct anything in communities, you need gravel. In regard to the flood that took place a couple of years ago in Aklavik, we spent $1.4 million to barge gravel from Inuvik, yet the gravel source is 20 kilometres from the community. Also, it is the linkage to get Aklavik connected to the Dempster Highway.
There was a motion passed in this House, unanimously supported by Members on this side of the House, to have this project move forward along with the project for Tuktoyaktuk in regard to access to their gravel source. I’d like to ask the Premier: could he tell me exactly how much weight that motion had in this House, and what is the government doing to ensure that the motions passed in this House send direction to Cabinet so they move on some of these matters?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The Hon. Premier, Minister Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The motions of this House do carry weight. We review our options on an annual basis and weigh out, with the funding available, what projects can proceed.
On a specific gravel source to Aklavik, the Member raised this issue with me, as well, in the last session. I sat down with the Ministers on our side and committed them to work with the Member in the community. I understand the appropriate Ministers went into Aklavik this summer, had a meeting, and there were ongoing discussions there. There was a commitment to look at, as the Member pointed out, through the Building Canada Fund, the research and development portion of that as one of the possible avenues of trying to do some preliminary engineering work.
Mr. Speaker, in the meeting that the Premier mentioned in Aklavik, there was a commitment for $50,000 for the committee to begin its work to develop a report so that they can look at the alignment of the access road and the gravel source itself. They would develop a proposal and bring it forward so that we can be able to access the federal infrastructure funding with a proposal moving forward to Ottawa.
I’d like to ask the Premier: is he aware if that commitment has been lived up to in regard to the $50,000 for the committee and the departments to develop that report?
I am aware that the department is working with the community. I understand, in fact, that a meeting will be held in the community next week, I believe on the 15th of October, to have further discussion in this area. At that point, they’ll have to decide how they can move this further ahead.
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, access for our communities, but more importantly access to gravel sources, is fundamental, especially to communities that are prone to flooding. With global warming these challenges are going to get worse before they are going to get better. We are seeing more and more floods every year. Communities are being affected; forest fires…. I think that as a government we do have to be proactive, reactive. So I’d like to ask the Premier: would he commit to ensure that we have something ready to go to the federal government, hopefully no later than December?
Mr. Speaker, the Building Canada Fund process is in the system with the Minister responsible for the infrastructure department, Minister Michael McLeod. He committed, through the process, to continue to do this work. I can’t say if we’ll have something absolutely in place by December. The next number of meetings that need to occur between the Department of Transportation and the community are going to be the critical ones to look at how they would proceed on the preliminary engineering and scope of project and at that point decide how they would fund that.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to get a commitment from the Premier that at least somewhere in going forward we’re looking at a business planning process, pre-budget estimates, capital estimates. I’d like to see somewhere in that picture that there will be mention of the Aklavik access road in the capital project, in future years or whatever. But at least I want to see a name that shows up in the books. Is that a possibility, that we can look at the $50,000 that’s being expended through that infrastructure funding going forward with future capital amounts being listed?
Mr. Speaker, the department is going to work with the community. They’re talking about trying to come up with the funds through the research and development portion of the Building Canada Fund, and that work will be ongoing.
As for me committing to taking a project and putting it into the plan, we know that we work with Members of the Assembly through the business plan process, and I wouldn’t say that I personally or as Premier could put a project in there without proper consultation.
I think this work we talked about is going to help us prepare for the next stage, and that is research development to come up with the preliminary work. Through that process we’ll be able to identify how we could move this forward and when, in what year, it would be able to flow and what dollars we could find attached to it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
