Thank you very much. Just following up on my Member’s statement I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation about the planned air terminal building that wasn’t completed in the capital plan this year. When will the community of Trout Lake be getting their air terminal building? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We completed this Trout Lake Airport with Building Canada Plan funds. We had $7.2 million to build the road to the new airport and the apron, the airport itself and the new terminal building, but at the end we had expended all the money. We didn’t have enough money left in the budget to complete the $450,000 air terminal building, which is designed and ready to go but we didn’t have the money to do it. Thank you.
Thank you very much. They couldn’t complete it this winter. So the Minister is saying it will be delivered on the winter road in December of 2015 or January of 2016. I didn’t hear a clear answer there. Thank you.
As indicated, the entire project was over budget. Therefore, we do have to go back to get the money through the regular process. Our intention is to include this air terminal building in the next cycle of the capital planning process, which would be ’16-17.
Well, the Minister clarified exactly what process. Where the air terminal building is, there is none. So he’s got to actually request another one and that’s too bad. As well, like I indicated, the capital planning process is upon us and will be starting soon.
What steps will the Minister be taking to ensure that the community of Trout Lake gets a new airport snow blower for the new and larger airport as well? Thank you.
Right now we are using equipment that exists in the community. The hamlet grader actually is doing the work at the airport. We think that is going to be sufficient, but we’re going to evaluate that after this winter and see if there were any issues at all with the current equipment that’s in the community. If we find that the equipment is inadequate and that we’re not able to do the job and that there are any issues whatsoever with the airline companies, medevac, anything in there whatsoever, then we need to take a look at perhaps bringing more equipment in. The problem with the plow truck or snow blower basically is these are expensive pieces of equipment and they’re also very expensive to maintain and repair if something goes wrong. A grader is something we find that’s durable and can do the job, and we’re hoping that the results of our investigation on how the past winter had gone with the airport will be good, the results will be fine and that we wouldn’t need anything else at the airport. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Hopefully they do a proper and thorough investigation, because using the old community grader, they’re doing a much larger surface area than they did with the smaller airport. You have 3,500 feet of runway, you’ve got a large apron, so I just don’t believe the speed is there and the ability to clear the snow quickly. I would like to ask the Minister one more time for proper evaluation. I know there are some communities out there that have a snow blower, but they rarely use it so they also have to evaluate how snow blowers are distributed throughout the Northwest Territories. With that, I will ask the Minister to do a proper evaluation and look at the capital planning process for a snow blower for the community of Trout Lake. Thank you.
We are currently monitoring the situation and we will evaluate once the season is over and see if there are issues at all. As I indicated, if there are issues and we found the grader was inadequate, especially as the Member pointed out with the lighting, some danger with the lighting on this type of plow, we will look at that, and if we think there is no way we can continue with just a grader on the airport, we will look at the capital planning process to put in proper equipment.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
