Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it has been two weeks since MTS cancelled the barge delivery to Paulatuk and the two communities outside the territory, and no tenders have been awarded yet, Mr. Speaker, which is increasing the cost of living for constituents in my region.
Mr. Speaker, I have follow-up questions for the Minister of Infrastructure on the MTS operations for the upcoming airlift to Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok, which do not include the gasoline delivery to Sachs Harbour. The Minister noted that he would not consider Tuktoyaktuk as a port for the North, given its ideal position as traffic increases in the Northwest Passage. My first question to the Minister is: the cost of the airlift has to come from somewhere, given there may be as many as 100 or more flights worth millions of dollars. My question is: will this additional cost fall on taxpayers in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I want to update the House a little bit on what I know what is going on today. The tenders have been awarded, and I believe the first flight is going into Paulatuk probably today, hauling fuel, so that process is under way.
As far as Sachs Harbour, the Member e-mailed me asking me about Sachs Harbour for fuel. I have looked into that matter, and Sachs Harbour has significant gasoline in their community, so that isn't an issue.
As far as where we are going to recover the cost of funding this operation, the fuel is going to come out of the POL revolving account, and for the transportation of commodities and goods going into the community, it is going to come out of the MTS revolving fund. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the response, and it's good to see. I looked on the website this morning. There were no tenders awarded, and hopefully that process can start soon.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister stated that this error for not delivering fuel was due to ice. However, will the Minister commit to ensure that petroleum products are inspected and meet the requirements before allowing onto any MTS barges so that this doesn't happen again or commit to other shipping methods?
The fuel situation is part of the delay, and tomorrow I'm doing a Minister's statement on the whole issue around this marine, MTS, and the supply and stuff. We will be updating the House there. I am actually going to reach out to committee and ask them if they want a briefing on this whole issue.
The fuel that caused some of the delays this year was not even fuel for us. It was for a customer. It was shipped to Hay River via the railroad, and it did not meet spec when it reached there. Then we are not talking like 5, 10 gallons of fuel here. We are talking about hundreds of millions of litres, and that caused a significant delay. That is something that was part of the proponents problem. It wasn't even our fuel. It wasn't for our communities. It was a customer's problem, but we will work closely with the oil company.
It's good to have good answers, and I believe that the Minister is doing his work for that. However, MTS is a carrier of products, whether they are petroleum products or dry goods around the territory, and I see this as a logistical issue.
Mr. Speaker, I think what we really need to do, or the department needs to do, is pinpoint where this error started and work from there. My question to the Minister is: will the Minister be accountable for this, or will he ensure that the people who did not do their due diligence of their work are accountable for this and that we ensure that errors like this do not happen again, as shipping is a small window of opportunity in the territory?
First of all, I answered the question last week, where the Member ended it saying that was an error, and I said that this isn't an error. This is a combination of a whole bunch of factors. When I do my Minister's statement tomorrow, I will clearly lay it out.
There are certainly lessons learned from this thing. I am not saying that the department is not going to learn something from this. Of course, we are going to learn something from this. I think with the announcement that we just did in Hay River around the double-hull barges, it is going to help alleviate some of the situation. I referred last week, maybe we do have to change our scheduling, but that's something that we have to look at. We are going to have to work closely with all our partners, with the communities, with the Canadian coastguard, and maybe we do look at something in Tuktoyaktuk.
At this point right now, to clearly blame some individual or some people within my department that this was an error on our part is clearly not true. This was a combination of a number of things and that's why I have offered committee a briefing to go through this all, so everyone can know clearly where we stand and what the situation was.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the response. Mr. Speaker, you know, it sounds like somebody was asleep at the wheel somewhere along the way. In this case, it's the wheel house in this area for MTS for them to wake up into freezing ice and not be able to move anywhere.
I appreciate the work that the Minister is doing, and I appreciate his work all around. However, somebody needs to be accountable somewhere and we cannot deflect this any further. My question to the Minister is: with this air-lift affect the future rates to be paid by MTS customers? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
No, this air-lift will not affect future rates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
