Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, follow-up to my Member’s Statement. I have a few questions for the Minister of Transportation. I'd like to ask the Minister, what criteria does the department use to determine when the ferry vessel must be replaced? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is continually working to improve the transportation system. Available resources rely on asset management tools which we use continually on an ongoing basis to make strategic operational decisions around all our assets. But moving forward, we have to maximize what we have with the limited funding we have, and that makes choices pretty tough sometimes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, what is the average estimated cost of a ferry vessel replacement?
Upgrading the Louis Cardinal to a larger vessel wouldn't be cost effective at this time we believe. But to answer the question directly, it's approximately $10 million to replace that ferry.
Mr. Speaker, I know that may sound like a lot, but actually for a vessel that size I think that's a very good deal myself. You know, with the infrastructure that we are spending, you know, $100 million, $200 million here, $450 million over here, I mean I think that's a small price to pay here. But moving forward, will the department start examining ways to address this cost and meet this challenge? For example, undertaking the planning study?
Mr. Speaker, the department data indicates that the Louis Cardinal is sufficient and it meets the adequate needs of the capacity of the region right now, and we continue to track that with the data received on the volume of traffic on the Louis Cardinal.
The other thing we do, and the Member stated, we're throwing money around with capital investments. We just replaced the bottom of the Louis Cardinal in the last cycle year, in the last season, and we're about to rebuild the engines on the Louis Cardinal this coming winter.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know with the overhaul of the hull, the engines, all the work that has been done to the engines, I believe it's up for replacement myself; it has over 25,000 hours as I've been told. That's almost $2 million there that could have been put towards a new vessel.
We have to start planning out how our spending or maintaining our equipment rather than replacing. I know a lot of that work has been done to a lot of our buildings, but, you know, we have to start planning properly here. Will the Minister ensure that a planning study has been taken on the Louis Cardinal?
As I've stated, we use management tools to make strategic operational decisions on our equipment and our assets and we will continue to use that, and moving forward, I will update the Member where this is at in the queue. But, as I've said, we have very limited funds moving forward and we need to stretch these out across the whole Northwest Territories.
Masi. Member for Hay River North.
