Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again, the Member raises a lot of issues that are of concern in his riding. The issue of access road to gravel sources has become very popular or at least a common voiced concern here in this House and at a lot of our meetings. Right now we don’t have a program that allows for investment in roads to gravel sources. It is something that this government hasn’t had. I think the responsibility was devolved over to the municipalities through the New Deal program some years ago. We do have an Access Road Program that has a budget of $300,000 that communities access for...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess there are a couple of options out there. The community has done a very good job of doing a study that brought the information forward that brought us to this stage where we will probably need a project description report done on the route and the environmental side of it, and also look at the economics of it. Of course, a large stockpile by all stakeholders for gravel needs for the next five years is probably the cheapest way to go, but the community has been very determined that they need a gravel source and we’ve been very cooperative with them. The next step...

First question, I guess the $400,000 that was approved was approved last year in the budget. The agreement to supply this was in the concession agreement. I think it would be very difficult to go back and open it up at this point.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, the Member raises an issue that has been somewhat of a challenge over the years for us as a department. We’ve looked at a number of ways that we can suppress the dust on our highways. We’ve also done the same in a lot of the communities. We’ve used different methods and products over the years, calcium, of course, being the cheapest one; however, a very limited lifespan, about one year for calcium. We’ve also used EK35 on some municipal roads and we also used it on airports. It’s a product that’s fairly cheap, but the lifespan of EK35 is somewhat limited, it...

Mr. Chairman, we would be happy to consider all possibilities as we move forward. Thank you.

We certainly can do that. Mr. Speaker, I have to point out I don’t share the Member’s concerns. The community, the job contract from the community requested to do the site preparation and they did the contract, they had that contract, they requested to do the earth works, they got the contract, they did that work, they wanted to do the gravel pit development, they requested that, they got that, and they did it, and they wanted to provide camp services, Mr. Speaker, and they are providing camp services. I wasn’t aware there was water truck involvement in here. I only know that the Municipality...

Mr. Chairman, we plan to move ahead with the realignment as planned. We have had consultation with the communities. We have talked about the areas of concern for a number of years. Two issues were raised. There is the burial grounds at the mouth of the Great Bear Lake where the ice takes a long time to form. We have planned and designed a route so that we can have the road avoid the burial grounds and so that it crosses a location where the ice is thicker and freezes sooner, so I think we have dealt with all the concerns and our plan is to go ahead as we had discussed with the community.

Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with this project. We went far above what was required to ensure that the community was involved. We gave a lot of flexibility to the community to become a partner and negotiate a contract. Six million dollars worth of work went to the partnership. We extended time frames. We facilitated discussions with subcontractors. So I think there’s been a lot of work in this area and certainly our department has been involved every step of the way. We are well aware that there are some companies, some sub-trades are not able to negotiate good arrangements.

Mr. Speaker, we...

This is an issue that I think the Member has raised every year from the time he was elected in this position. It is certainly an area that we have worked towards improving. I think that we have spent more than $5 million in a number of key improvements and along the Mackenzie Valley winter road. We have, at his request, looked at putting a number of signs along the winter road so that the traffic could be informed of corners and hills and we also overall wanted to have a stronger presence with our highway enforcement officers and highway patrols and changed our permitting system and have...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think all the Members in the House recognize the cost of building bridges are very extreme and it certainly would be a fiscal challenge for our government to actually finance and provide the resources to build one bridge in the typical fashion required for building a bridge.

We have considered, as part of what would be a Mackenzie Valley Highway, that the bridges along that route would be covered and part of the road, if there was ever federal resources to build that road. We do have, as the Member has indicated, expertise on a lot of the aspects of building bridges. We...