Michael McLeod

Mr. Speaker, obviously the Member is not listening. I said on two occasions now that it deeply concerns me. I mean that. It is an issue that is outside of my responsibility. We feel that there are other ways to create deterrents if the current fine system is not adequate to do what he is requesting. We don’t feel that including the lost demerit points is going to do what he is expecting. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’m being very careful, not because I don’t see a need to increase and add to the deterrents that are in place already. I would think the fine of $250 is pretty significant for anybody to be considering parking in one of those stalls. However, this is a responsibility that falls under another department. The Member is asking what I would do for an area that I am not responsible for.

Mr. Speaker, we certainly can commit to having that discussion with the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and the City of Yellowknife, if need be, to see what else we can do. At this point, we...

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to provide Members and the public with information related to the future Mackenzie Valley Highway to Tuktoyaktuk.

On Friday, January 29th, the Government of Canada announced it has agreed to commit $3 million over two years toward a $7 million project description report on the construction of an all-weather highway from Wrigley to the Dempster Highway. This report will work in combination with a previously announced $1 million commitment to a project description report for the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk portion.

With this announcement, the Government of Canada...

Without taking the thunder away from the federal Minister’s visit, I can assure the Member that we have been working on completing the PDR for all of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We had anticipated it would take roughly two years and cost approximately $8 million. The work that has been completed from the Inuvik-Tuk portion is proving to be a little more expedient than we had expected. They did the work on that stretch in roughly a six or seven month period. We expect that we’ll move a little faster than we had originally provided time for. But we’ll be having a get-together and some...

Mr. Speaker, we’ve been putting a lot of attention to this initiative that has been supported by our government. We’ve done some very good work in terms of developing the project description reports that are required for the road all the way from Wrigley to Tuk. The federal government has, through the CanNor program, funded the portion from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk. My discussions with the mayors from Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk indicate that has now been concluded. It is being packaged as a report and that is coming forward. There has also been a submission for some dollars and a request for...

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if that was something that we had indicated in our response to the Member at the time. I believe we had discussed the merits of the program. I had raised that there were some NGOs that were raising concern and that we needed to further investigate. That is where the situation still stands, from my standpoint. I would have to have further discussions. We will provide correspondence to the Member. Thank you.

The Member’s assigning a lot of blame to the Bridge Corporation. I’m not quite as ready to do so. He’s mentioned a lot of extra costs that are being borne by the government so far. I guess there’s been a position and a portion of another position that’s dedicated to the project and maybe some of the travel. The rest of the costs that are being incurred are being absorbed by the project and the project budget. We have and will continue to see how our partner in this P3 program is working. We have to remember it’s probably the largest project we’ve had for this government and it’s one of the...

I’m not sure which one of the three questions he wanted me to answer in that barrage of questions he just tossed out there. The Deh Cho Corporation, of course it’s accountable first and foremost, I guess, to the owners of the company, which are the Dene and Métis in the community of Fort Providence. They have an obligation to us as a government through our agreement to build and construct and design this facility that we’re working on, which is the Deh Cho Bridge.

We had intended to do two things in the life of this government. The first portion for the Mackenzie Valley Highway initiative is to have an economic analysis done on this whole portion of highway that we’re looking at. The second thing that we wanted to achieve was to have a project description report for the whole portion right from Wrigley to Tuk. We’re well on our way on the Tuk-Inuvik portion. We’re still working on the funding for the rest of it. Once we do have the resources, then we’ll be able to embark on that work. That includes surveying, the alignment, some of the economic scoping...

Mr. Speaker, I, unlike others, can see past Yellowknife. We have, of course, recognized that this is an initiative. It has a bearing on companies across the North, outside of Yellowknife. It is an initiative that is receiving a lot of attention. A lot of other jurisdictions are buying into it. We are also looking and reviewing what is being done in other areas. The short answer is yes, we are looking at it from across the board standpoint. Thank you.