David Ramsay

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment would have helped communities fund these workshops that have been much anticipated in the Sahtu. For a detailed breakdown of costs and who is paying for what, I will make a commitment today to get the Member that information. Certainly, we have been looking for partners to help pay for these workshops. That is how we have gone about this, is partnerships, and if that’s with industry and communities, that’s how we are going to continue to pursue getting people the education that they need when it comes to making an informed decision about...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to hydraulic fracturing, and the Northwest Territories is no different.

It has been suggested many times that we do more community meetings and workshops when it comes to hydraulic fracturing. At the suggestion of the community of Fort Good Hope, who wanted a third-party workshop to be set up in the communities in the Sahtu – the Member mentioned the communities of Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope – this week. We are also hoping to have meetings take place in Deline and also Tulita. The meeting in Fort Good Hope...

Mr. Speaker, there is probably about 75 million reasons why Conoco does drill those wells in the Sahtu this winter that I can come to the Sahtu with the Member. Certainly, I know industry has been open to getting visits to well sites, allowing people onto their working areas to show them the process, to show them how it works. I must say we had an opportunity near Weyburn, Saskatchewan, to get out on a well that was being fracked. I must say, it wasn’t very exciting. Some of the pressures were going up and the lights were flashing, but certainly the earth wasn’t shaking. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we probably have some of the most stringent regulatory requirements in North America here in the Northwest Territories. Nothing is going to happen unless it is regulated. Certainly after devolution, we will have a regulatory authority here in the Northwest Territories. It remains to be seen exactly how that is going to look. We continue to work towards that.

I want to give the Member and others the assurance that this is not going to be the Wild West with wells being drilled everywhere. We don’t have the issues that they have in North Dakota with a myriad of different land owners...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The operation in the Mackenzie Delta and in the Beaufort-Delta area is going to be enhanced this coming winter. We’ve put $400,000 into upgrading the Louis Cardinal so that it can operate in winter conditions and in ice conditions. We’ve set up two spray pumps so the ice crossings can be prepared as soon as possible. The anticipation, Mr. Speaker, is we will run both the Abraham Francis and the Louis Cardinal. The Abraham Francis is a cable ferry able to operate in ice conditions. So we will run both of those ferries until we get the ice crossings in place.

This is going...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would be more than happy to look into the request that the Member brings to the House today. We haven’t had that request presented to us in a formal way, at least in the last five years, so we would like to look at this a little bit further and see what it would cost and how it would work. We would be more than happy to sit down with the community leaders there, and the MLA, to discuss options that we could have. Thank you.

Outside of Mother Nature, I don’t expect any delays, but I can’t predict water levels and storms and things like that. We anticipate that we will be able to operate both the Louis Cardinal and the Abraham Francis well into December, until such time we get the ice crossings in place. That’s the anticipation, Mr. Speaker, thank you.

As I mentioned, we have put $400,000 into upgrades on the Louis Cardinal. They include some frost fighters, some control system upgrades so the ferry is able to operate in winter conditions.

Again, with the Abraham Francis, it is a cable ferry and it can operate in winter conditions. We expect it will be able to perform in winter conditions for us and for the travelling public in the region and businesses in the region this coming fall.

We have also put $1.4 million in O and M funding into the region to maintain continuous service at both of those crossings during the freeze-up period. That was...

Mr. Speaker, any time that can improve our service, that is something that we would like to consider. Certainly, I would like to take the Member up on his offer, if our schedules permit, to get down to Fort Simpson to have this meeting sometime before Christmas. Thank you.

There would be some small costs associated with maintenance for the Dempster and I can get the Member those figures. I had mentioned earlier, we are putting in the $1.4 million to ensure the continuous services at both of those crossings. That figure of $1.4 million may include some of the maintenance work on the highway itself. So I will get that detailed information for the Member.