Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This spring we had an early spring up in the Mackenzie Delta, about a week early actually, and over the last few days the water has dropped a lot, there’s no more ice on the river, and as far as I know, the ferry is supposed to be launched tomorrow.
I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation, will the ferry be launched tomorrow? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The plan is to launch the ferry tomorrow, Thursday; at the very latest, early Friday. Thank you.
Just over lunch today I got the latest update from Tsiigehtchic and the water level is very low, you can see the landing.
What is the status on the landings right now? Are there people working on it, building it up, getting it ready for the ferry? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The water is subsiding and the slipways are ready. Equipment is now working to improve the landings, so yes the landings are ready. We are expecting the service of hauling vehicles to actually start on Sunday. We are trying to speed it up to try to coincide with people wanting to travel over to Inuvik for the graduation. We have put a bit of a rush on it, so the department tells me that they are hoping to resume service, but safety is very important. There is some welding that has occurred while the ferry was on land, so we have to ensure that those things are taken care of before we are able to haul the public. Thank you.
That was going to be my next question, but the Minister answered most of it. What is the holdup on the ferry? Is there welding still needed? I didn’t really get that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When we put the ferry into the water and start to run the ferry across the Mackenzie River, we have to ensure that there are no issues. We don’t anticipate issues; we just need to do a test before we actually let the public onto the ferry. There is no real holdup. It is going as we initially scheduled for the ferry to operate. Generally on average the ferry has started on June 1st. We’re hoping that we’re able to at least meet that day this season as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned, the graduation is on Saturday, and I would like to ask the Minister, does he think that the ferry will be ready for people to travel on Saturday? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The information I have right now is that the service will begin on Sunday. As I indicated, we would like to try to get the ferry running on Saturday so that we can accommodate people wanting to go to watch the two graduates from Tsiigehtchic. We recognize that that’s something that the community wants to see, so we are working hard to try to make that happen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
