Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my statement about the bridge at Willow River, the community is very thankful for the support from the Minister and department, but moving forward in the next Assembly, the community would like some assurance that this Community Access Program will continue in the 18th Assembly.
I’d like to ask the Minister, will they recommend that the Community Access Program continue in the 18th Legislative Assembly?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That program is fully utilized all the time. It’s a very good program. All the communities like it and we’re going to maintain the program.
This program that I’m referring to, the Community Access Program, has roughly a million dollars in that fund. We have 32 communities that make use of these funds and it’s very limited to the amount that you can put in for.
Will the Minister recommend that this fund be increased?
We had recognized that it was the previous government that had tripled the budget from around $300,000 to just slightly over $1 million. We recognize that the budget is fully utilized and we are receiving applications well in excess of what money is available. We continue to have internal discussions in DOT to see if there’s a possibility internally to move some money around. So, we continue to have that discussion.
There are a lot of areas where there are pressures, of course. We have highways, we have marine services and airports and winter roads. So within those areas we are looking to see if it is possible to move money around internally.
Alternatively, I guess we go back to the House to look for additional funds, but at this time we are looking internally at that, in hopes that maybe in the future there will be a little bit more money put into the Access Program. Thank you.
We’re getting our transition protocol here to recommend to our next government what to carry on with, and I thank the Minister for doing that with this program here, but I’d like to also recommend that this fund be increased. Even by $200,000, it helps the communities a lot with programs that create employment in the communities and I hope that happens. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
At this point in the transition planning, we are not working specifically on any of the budgets, departmental budgets; however, we would have an opportunity to maybe discuss some of the programs that are very well-utilized, some of the more popular programs, and we could have that discussion in the transition meetings as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Before we go on, colleagues, I would like to welcome back to Yellowknife, I guess, Mr. David Lovell, former mayor of Yellowknife. Welcome to the House.
---Applause
Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
