Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I spoke earlier today about some of the incidents that have been going on in and around the City of Yellowknife with regard to, in particular, the haul trucks and the public safety that stems from these particular incidents that have been happening. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation. I would like to ask the Minister if there is anything he can share with the public right now to help build on their reassurance that this is hopefully some freak circumstance and that this is not a regular instance? What can the Minister share with us today in terms of any problems that have been identified? Is there a trend of some kind that we should know about? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Public safety is always the number one thing for the NWT highways. It is a priority of this government and the department in particular. As of today I can update the Members of this House that the department and the winter road joint venture have actually had a meeting about the concerns of the events that have taken place over the last couple of weeks on the winter road. The number of fires, in particular, is very unusual. Of everything that I have been briefed on up to date, I think in the last five years there might have been one fire, and it was out on the winter road section closer to one of the mines. This is of a particular concern. I believe the joint venture is going to have ongoing meetings with contractors and stuff to try to get to some kind of conclusion as to what is causing these issues. As that moves forward, I can keep Members informed on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. We appreciate being informed as we go forward. I guess the next question is: who ultimately is responsible for overseeing these investigations? The Ingraham Trail itself has a number of residents on it. The Tibbit to Contwoyto portion of the road is managed to some degree by the joint venture. Who is responsible for investigating these incidents as they happen anywhere up and down the trail or the Tibbit to Contwoyto road?
The joint venture is directly responsible for the contractors that are employed under them that are running up and down the highway. As far as our Department of Transportation, when a vehicle is registered in the Northwest Territories and it goes through its annual inspections and stuff, that is a whole different issue. This issue of the incidents that have taken place over the last few weeks on the road system between Yellowknife and the diamond mines is the joint venture's. We are working closely with them. We have a great relationship with them. As I have said, they are talking to the commercial carriers that are involved in this and seeing if there is something that needs to change or something that needs to be put in place to mitigate these measures.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. Of course, ultimately, the most important thing here is the safety of people's lives. I have raised it before in the House. I have raised it during budget session. I have raised it to other departments about the concerns with regard to public safety up and down the Ingraham Trail. It comes down to knowing: do we as a government have a communication plan when it comes to these sorts of incidents? We know that any one of these could have been more catastrophic. In fact, we have had catastrophic circumstances with regard to fires happening up and down this road before. I don't know if the Minister can speak on behalf of the government, but we need to know what the communication plan is and who is taking the lead on the communications plan when it comes to these incidences on the Ingraham Trail.
All I can tell the House right now is we use Twitter and Facebook and those things to reach out. I think it is a little bit more complicated than that. Some of this stuff is within the city boundaries. I think we need to have a broader communication planning session, to sit down with the Department of Transportation, the RCMP, MACA, the City of Yellowknife, the Aboriginal stakeholders in that region as well, and have a conversation about how we move forward. It is something I think we need to continue to improve on. I thank the Member for bringing that up. I will have the department have a look into how we can have a better strategy on these things and how we can get them out there.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to hear that response, because that kind of leads into my next question. That was going to be: would the Minister take the initiative to actually get all of the key stakeholders together and start to develop a communications plan, including the residents of Ingraham Trail, so that we can make sure that those who are living there, those who travel up and down this road on a regular basis, that their lives, most importantly, but their general public safety is being ensured?
I will put it to the Minister. Will he commit to working with his colleagues as well as the respective stakeholders that are involved on that road and making sure that we develop a critical public safety communications plan for that road? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will commit to doing that and having a look at that and informing the House on that moving forward.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
