David Ramsay

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my left I have Russ Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation. To my right I have Ms. Jayleen Robertson, director of environment and communications with DOT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his question. We’ve looked at that facility the Member talks of and we have made some improvements to the facility. I want to assure the Member that some of those improvements have been made. If the Member has specific concerns going forward, I’m more than happy if the Member wants to bring those concerns to our attention. We have no plans to expand the facility, but like I’ve said, we’ve taken some steps to improve things there. If the Member hears any further complaints or concerns, please bring them to our attention and we’d be more than happy...

Mr. Chair, as the Member knows, I have a great deal of respect for the community leadership in Deline. I never would underestimate their ability to raise money and to deliver on a project.

I think, at the end of the day, the House would still have to approve any funding that went into a runway extension in Deline. I think, perhaps as the next step, we could sit down with the community leaders, talk to them about what they believe the economic drivers are or the impetus to get the runway extension done and, again, continue the dialogue, because we really need to do that. We have to get a better...

Thank you. No, it’s not and we are making every effort to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I can assure Members that I know there are folks out there and the Member wanted to bring some witnesses, but the highway is safe. Highway No. 3 is safe. If you look at the collision rates between 1993 and 2012, collision rates per million vehicles have gone down over half in terms of the volume of collisions on Highway No. 3. I think that means that our highways are safe. We have statistics to back up the fact that there aren’t as many collisions on that road as there were in the ‘90s and that number has been steadily coming down.

The Member seems to… I don’t know if something is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his questions today. Certainly, the airport at Norman Wells, as I mentioned in response to one of the other Members earlier, we believe it is capable of handling the traffic that it does currently. That’s not to say that it could be impacted further down the road when we see more activity in the Sahtu.

Through the Corridors for Canada plan, we have I believe it’s $15 million earmarked over a few years to look at the development of that airport, specifically commercial development and availability of land for commercial use at the airport. I do...

That bison, to my knowledge, was observed jumping the guardrail and not going across the Texas gate. The Texas gate is utilized across North America as a way of keeping cattle out of an area. It’s certainly something we see a lot of in Alberta and it works. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue for the road to the gravel source at Willow Lake is an issue the Member has brought up a number of times in the past. It is something that we continue, as a department, to work with the community. We have funded them in the past for $250,000 through the Community Access Program. We have also helped them develop PDR work on the road itself. We had I believe it was $100,000 toward a study on a bridge crossing. It was expected that that bridge would cost somewhere around $300,000, but it is expected that the bridge on that road alignment would cost about $1...

Thank you. In the almost two years I’ve been Minister, I don’t recall a formal request from the community to expand the airport at Aklavik. If that’s something that predates me, maybe the deputy minister may know something about that.

Thank you. We’ve had a long history of working with industry in the area. We will continue to work with industry so that we can get the requisite investment by industry to enable us to enhance the winter road. Through the Department of Transportation, we’ve done a lot of work on mapping. I know the Member and I drove the winter road last year. There’s a map that’s been developed. We’re improving the road itself, putting in a number of bridges and crossings there.

We will continue to try to improve the safety of that road, not just for industry but for the travelling public, and we continue to...