Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I'm glad the Minister's here; we're all going to take advantage of that.
Mr. Speaker, like, I mentioned this year I've been trying to get a winter road to my communities but, again, it just still goes to show that, you know, we got winter roads to Colville Lake, Deline, Gameti, Nahanni Butte, Norman Wells, Somba K'e, Tulita, Wekweeti, Whati, Wrigley. And then we got ice roads. We got Aklavik ice road, Dettah ice road. Ice crossings. Liard crossing, Mackenzie River crossing, Peel River crossing. And then we got a road to Tibbitt Lake. And this year I asked for help to get a winter road built to my community of Lutselk'e. We have the high cost of living there. To bring in a vehicle is crazy, to bring in material, homes into the community, just really, really at a very high cost. So and, again, I was told that it's going to cost about $2 million to put a road in on an annual basis. So I'd like to take this opportunity to direct my question to the GNWT Infrastructure Minister, Diane Archie, to see if we could work with the Government of Canada to help find $2 million a year just for the winter road on an annual basis, plus additional barging that we could do to provide services to the community of Lutselk'e so that we could help reduce the cost of living in our communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member and I have had discussions in the past on the Lutselk'e ice road request. We did look into it. The Member's correct, it was going to cost about $2 million annually to have a look. And with that, there was a number of things. You know there's a short window. There's a number of risks going across that lake. And, you know, we will continue to discuss. I know the Member's wanting to have further discussions with perhaps the federal ministers on how we can work together, perhaps find some funding, to be able to look at, you know, other ways to get get the road done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And my invitation to all the Ministers and Premier still stands to coming to the community of Lutselk'e and Fort Resolution and Dettah and N'dilo. I think we had some kind of commitments in April and May so we look forward to that. But when you come to the community of Lutselk'e, again, the issue of winter road is still going to be there. The high cost of living, like I said, to bring a bed frame into the community costs $600. Things we take for granted living in a community like Yellowknife or in places where they have winter road, ice road, allseason roads, there's good. But, again, people in Lutselk'e are very concerned about the high cost of living. So I'm hoping that when we go to the community, we're going to be talking about that. But at the same time, I encourage you to continue to lobby on behalf of my community and the people in my community to the Government of Canada to see if they could get them on board to help start planning, do the feasibility study, and then start looking at putting an allseason I mean, a winter road, ice road, and also look at barging. We only get one barge a year, but we need probably a couple more. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. We do have the communities currently serviced by marine transportation services for the annual supply of fuel, construction, marine, and dry goods. Trucking fuel on the ice road over the Great Slave creates significant environmental risk, which would increase cost of fuel. So there are technical challenges, Mr. Speaker, of building an ice road across the lake. As I mentioned earlier, I understand where the Member's coming from and wanting to look at, you know, future development future road into the community. You know, we do have capital processes that we do as a government. So I hear where the Member's coming from. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank the Minister. And I look forward to working with you and also with the federal counterparts to, again, find money for our community. And the sooner the better. And I think when we come to the community of Lutselk'e, we're going to have that discussion. And there's other opportunities. Like, you said as well is that there's housing; there's materials in the community, the CoOp, and everybody could all have a hand, including the parks. So I think if you all got together and had that discussion, I'm sure we could reduce that cost as well. But, again, we just got to do that homework and I look forward to sitting down with you. And that was just a comment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. Taken as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
