David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past couple of years there’s been $250,000 under the Community Access Program given to the community of Aklavik to do PDR work on the Willow River gravel access road. Also, there was an additional $100,000. There was a bridge that was looked at and it was deemed to be too expensive. So the $100,000 that was earmarked for that bridge project has gone also to continue the work on the PDR for the gravel access road for the community of Aklavik.

I think at some point this summer I would like to be in Hay River to have a look at the port of Hay River, to discuss with operators, fishermen, people who use that port on a daily basis the needs on the dredging side. Again, certainly, I think we have to come up with a business case and continue to impress upon the federal government the need to put some money into dredging the port of Hay River. It’s estimated it could be as high as about $12 million to $15 million to dredge the port of Hay River.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s questions. Yes, there was some damage sustained to the Inuvik terminal building this past winter. Public Works and Services was responsible for the repairs that took place to the terminal building. They ran in the order of about $100,000 on the repairs to the terminal building. There is no long-term structural damage to the building itself. It didn’t require repairs and it won’t require any further repairs. However, that building is getting older and at some point in time we will need to look at replacing the air terminal building in Inuvik...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I’ll start at the end. It’s better for my memory that way. The first issue that Mr. Hawkins had, I just wanted to clarify. There is a tremendous amount of work that the department is putting into the Inuvik-Tuk highway. That was a director-level position. It was advertised, it was subsequently cancelled and we’re managing internally for now with a gentleman in that position. So that’s that part.

Also, I wanted to mention, if I could, the Deh Cho Bridge, and Member Hawkins had brought this up as well. What we’re trying to do right now is put together the most...

Thank you, Madam Chair. During my opening comments I alluded to the fact that we are going through a review of fees and the structure of those to ensure their fairness and if they are in fact at market rates. We will continue to move that effort along. When we do have some detailed information on what we want to propose, we will certainly be coming back to the Members with those fee schedules and what we anticipate or want to see happen. That should be happening. I would imagine by the end of this year I would hope we could have that work concluded. We could have the information in front of...

Yes, I do.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s our expectation that will be in operation late this fall.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s concerns related to the Trout Lake Airport construction. There have been some issues there. We’ve been working through the issues with the community. The community has requested the department and agreed that the negotiated contract be set aside and that DOT take over the management of the project. That’s what we intend to do. Construction, again, should start sometime soon, with an eye to maximizing opportunities at the community level. That’s something that we will be keeping a close eye on as well. I think we were there before and there were...

I think once we get the projects out there, we can make that correlation on the increased amortization that you see and the number of capital projects that the department has been involved in over the last little while here. We can make that clear. Thank you.