Michael McLeod

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...

Mr. Chairman, the relationship we have with the MAC Group is through the Gwich’in Tribal Council and the president. They have had some discussions with myself and also with some of our staff and demonstrated an interest in doing some of the project description report work that we’d like to see done that’s within their traditional area. They have indicated to us that they are getting close to some kind of agreement that would see some investment from the federal government and they’ve asked us to stay in touch with them or to see if we’d be interested. I believe our Premier has given them a...

Mr. Speaker, I think all parties involved, all stakeholders, including the municipalities, have recognized that it’s still cheaper to do an analysis of what the gravel requirements per community are for that year and provide a stockpile versus to try to find 20 to 30 million dollars to build a road. It’s still very difficult to do so. I think there is merit to look at the long term and try to work with the communities, and I’ve committed to do so. I’d like to see that move forward, but at this point there is no program and there is no budget that allows us to tap into for gravel source access...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member raised a very healthy list of projects that we are working on in the Northwest Territories with communities to find either improvement through the Access Roads Program to enhance road systems or, in some cases, to try and find a way to lessen the costs to have gravel into the communities.

We don’t, as a department, have a gravel source program per se. We have really tried to reach out and be creative in a number of situations including the Tuk source 177 program where we were able to access the Building Canada Fund and work with some communities such as...

I’ll certainly convey that to our officials, that this building better be done by the end of November. I should point out, though, the building is still usable and the community certainly can take advantage of it. We are very aware that they were very frustrated with some of the issues that came forward, but we’re working very hard to get it all addressed, for the most part. Except for the floor, I think everything’s done and we will ensure that it’s completed by the end of November. We will inform the Member that we want to move forward and have an official opening at some point. We already...