Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the Minister of Transportation tabled in this House the 2015-2040 Transportation Strategy, which also includes four-year action plans along the way.
Going through the priorities, and we’re also looking at maximizing opportunities and creating new infrastructure, can I ask the Minister, in terms of priorities, where does the aging and underdeveloped system that we have throughout the Northwest Territories right now sit on that priority? Is it the number one priority that we have within this government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Strengthening our connections is one of the objectives of the Transportation Strategy for the next 25 years. We would be paying equal attention to all three strategies. That is one of the strategies, is to improve the current infrastructure that we have. In fact, we have been working with the federal government and improving our current infrastructure for the past seven years with the Building Canada Fund and our funding, and we’re hoping to continue that work for the next 10 years as we get the bundles in the current Building Canada Fund approved. Thank you.
The Minister alluded to the Building Canada Plan and the fund that he’s looking at in terms of building some of these new infrastructures but also putting money towards our existing infrastructure.
Can I ask the Minister for an update on where this government is in negotiations about the Building Canada Fund that’s going to improve our highway systems and also start building on these new infrastructure projects? Can I get an update on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As Members know, it’s a $292 million proposal that we’ve submitted from Transportation to the Building Canada Fund. Right now we had separated them into three bundles of a little over $95 million. The first bundle received the approval through the Treasury Board. That’s one of the steps that it goes through: Infrastructure Canada to the Treasury Board and then back to us. The first bundle received approval today from the Treasury Board. Thank you.
I was hoping for more of a timeline when we can expect answers. I know there are a lot of companies out there that are really eager to get started on some of this work. With the time frame that we have in the Northwest Territories because of the extreme weather conditions, I think people like to get ready for that type of work…(inaudible)…time.
One of the sections in the strategy discusses incomplete highway infrastructure to maximize opportunities. One of the priorities in the 17th Legislative Assembly was the Mackenzie Valley Highway up the valley from Wrigley to the Dempster. In our discussions with the Mining Association of Canada during NWT Days, they said it was very important to have that infrastructure in place to move resources out of the territory, which we get a little bit of possible royalties off of that.
Can I ask the Minister, in terms of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, how long are we in terms of getting that project up and started up through the valley? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As far as the timelines for the Building Canada Fund, we have pre-tendered a lot of the work and we’re waiting for approval so we can award the tenders to the various companies.
As far as the Mackenzie Valley Highway goes, we have submitted all of the information that the federal government has requested. The last one was a business case that was a little over 300 pages long. That is currently with the federal government. The federal government is looking at that proposal under the National Infrastructure Fund, which is a $4 billion fund that is to be spread across the country.
Also, we’re looking at maybe how we could phase the proposal. But at this time we have the $700 million proposal in with the federal government. Their request for information has been provided and we’re waiting for them to approve. We’re anticipating, if approval is received, it would take about seven years of construction to build the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I attended a strategy meeting up in the Beaufort-Delta and it was a really good presentation; however, what it lacked was what other big projects are going throughout the Northwest Territories. It just focused on the Inuvik region, specifically the Inuvik Tuk Highway, and that’s great.
On page 55 of this new strategy, there’s a big blue arrow up there on the map. It’s the all-weather road to the Slave Geological Corridor. Things like that could have been presented to the community of Inuvik, Sahtu, the Deh Cho.
Knowing that this is going to become a priority of government but was not a big priority of the 17th Legislative Assembly when we sat down when we began this whole process of looking at what our priorities were, can I ask the Minister, at what point did the all-weather road into the Slave Geological Corridor become a priority of this government, or will it be in the transition document for the 18th or the 19th Assemblies? Can I ask the Minister if that’s something that this government is going to invest in before the end of this term? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The road into the Slave Geological Province has been contemplated and has been a priority of government for over 20 years. We must recognize that with new devolution, a lot of our resource revenues are coming from the diamond industry. What we need to do is we’re trying to find a quicker or more efficient way for them to get their freight and fuel into the Slave Geological. We are contemplating building some of the current winter road into an all-season road to make it more feasible for the diamond mines to extend their life and to continue to provide resource revenues to this government and to the federal government.
It hasn’t been something where we said, “We’re going to look at that and we’re not going to look at another major project.” We have put in for the Mackenzie Valley under one proposal. We’re talking with industry. We’re talking with Nunavut about extending the road into the Slave Geological. So there are a few of the projects at play here, including the road into the Tlicho region. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
