Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not particularly like Facebook. There is too much gossip and negativity on there for my liking, but I check it so that I can keep abreast of what is going on around town and in the Northwest Territories. However, Mr. Speaker, after this week, I might have to swear off Facebook for good. When I opened it up the other day, the first thing in my feed was a picture of the inside of the outhouse at the GNWT-owned north-of-60 visitors centre. It was not pretty, and I will spare everyone the gruesome details.
This has come up before. I have seen articles in the News/North about it. I know that other Members have asked questions about it. This is a perennial issue. It goes on and on for years, particularly at the border when the ice roads are in and all of the big trucks start coming from the south. It is where the truckers stop, and, you know, they don't take it easy on that bathroom, Mr. Speaker, and it is not a great way to introduce visitors to the Northwest Territories. I have some questions for the Minister of ITI on this.
I apologize to the Pages who came here hoping to see some political discourse, and I'm talking about outhouses, but that is the way it is sometimes. I have to ask the Minister: how are ITI's roadside outhouses maintained during the winter months? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unlike the summer park season, when we have contractors who look after these facilities on a daily basis, in the wintertime, we send our contractor out once a month to look after these facilities. Then, when conditions like this happen, of course, we dispatch the contractor out there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Once a month just isn't enough. As you know, it is winter, it is cold, things freeze, and they pile up, and I am not quite sure how they are going to deal with this. What is going to be done in the short term to fix this situation and ensure that these outhouses are kept clean this winter?
I can reassure the Member that we have already sent a contractor out there to clean this up. This has come up in this Assembly every year at this time of year, and we have to make it quite clear. This is a difficult situation for us. These things are isolated and remote. There is no power at these locations, and we spend a significant amount of money on this. We spend roughly $50,000 annually to clean these things up in the off-season, and we could probably spend that a week, if we had to really get after this thing, but we don't have the money to do this. The department is certainly going to be having a look at what we need to do. We are doing a review right now of our strategic plan on parks, and I am sure that this is going to be a topic of discussion.
It sounds like there is a review happening. There will probably be a report that comes out of it; maybe an action plan, maybe a framework, who knows? This has been ongoing for years and years and years, so there must be some sort of plan. I know that there are some bright people working in that department, so what is the long-term plan to ensure that these outhouses remain clean?
As I have said, we have sent someone out there to clean out this facility right now, and the Member is clearly right. We have 8,000 loads going to the mine site this year, so there are 16,000 extra trucks of traffic going just past that facility alone. Just think about that, if that was your washroom, the amount of toilet paper you have to supply.
We are looking at this thing. This is clearly an issue that is not going to go away unless we do something about it, but as I said, these things are located in locations where there is no access to power. We have to have a serious look at how we are going to be able to rectify this problem. Do we put in rotating porta-potties? Do we look at some type of antifreeze? Do we put bigger tanks in there? Is propane heat an option? These are the types of things that we are going to have to have a look at, or maybe, in this particular case, if Members really get on side and really push and help me access some funding from the Finance Minister, maybe we run a power line from the Alberta section to the border.
Certainly, with help of committee and the Members across the House, we can maybe rectify this problem, but we are looking at all of these alternatives. As I have said, we are working on our winter strategy and what we are going to do. This is going to be a conversation, not with just this facility, but with a number of facilities, and it is a challenging thing.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I understand the challenge. There is not even cell service out at the border. There is no power; there is no heat; there are no gas lines. I know that, in Alberta, they have gas lines, they have power, and so they have nice heated washrooms and don't run into these issues. Has the Minister put together an estimate on how much it would cost to install some heated washrooms or some type of infrastructure to avoid this? Do we have numbers that I can at least bring back to my constituents? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Roughly, from the department's numbers that I got from them, it costs $70,000 to construct just a regular outhouse. I suspect, for us to do a heated facility, as we have talked about in this House here and the challenges in the location that it is, it would probably be double that. We would be spending something like $140,000, not counting to run power out to this type of facility. We will work through this through our winter strategy and try to come up with something here before next winter about how we can try to rectify this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
