Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d have to go to the department and confirm, but I believe the project has been deferred until next year. There was some concern, as the season progressed, with the amount of rain that we got and the saturation that the road became. Mr. Speaker, it’s something that we’d still like to move forward on. There were questions raised by the Member on some of the other projects in his riding, including Highway No. 7 that we had to defer. It’s really unfortunate; however, we can’t control the weather, and we’ll commit to having those projects moved forward as soon as possible...

Mr. Speaker, as of now, the request for a camera at the ferry crossing has been something we were considering. We don’t have it built into our budget yet, but we certainly can take a look at it.

Yes, we continue to look at ways to expand our information collection through the intelligent systems that we have. If the Member had driven in, I am not sure if she drove into Yellowknife yesterday, but as she turned onto Highway No. 3, her vehicle would have been weighed, her speed recorded and the classification all documented. We have cameras on Highway No. 3. We have two cameras set up in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member raises an important safety concern that we have on all our highways, especially the highways that have chipseal. We have been looking at a number of ways to try to deal with this issue, and then try to raise the awareness through the public and the people on the highway system during the times when we have challenges. We’ve incorporated a maintenance schedule that would allow us to have staff on the highway system seven days a week so that they can closely monitor, especially during the winter months, the events that are happening.

We’ve also brought on stream...

Mr. Speaker, I had indicated earlier that I would be pleased to talk to the people of the Sahtu as to their desire to see if there is any way to upgrading this road or provide provisions that would allow us to look at what we can do or at least look at the options. This is a 14-kilometre road. I am not sure if I have as much free time as the Member to walk a whole 14 kilometres. I have committed that I would look at the situation. I would be pleased to look at the portion of road that he is referring to and try to do a visit and maybe at the time when he is walking, we can coordinate our...

Mr. Speaker, this section of road is in a very remote portion of the NWT. The use of this stretch of road is very limited. In fact, we don’t have any enforcement of this portion of highway. As of yet, we have not had the opportunity to talk about any improvements. Our indications earlier on were that the people of the Sahtu were not completely in support of upgrading this road as they felt it was going to increase traffic as a result. So we need to have that discussion. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it’s our goal to see chipseal applied to most of our roads, if not all of them, for the long term. As of yet, we haven’t been able to really prove that it will stay in sandy conditions such as the Fort Liard area. We know some work was done on the B.C. side. We’re going to take a look at that and see if we can do some test areas over the next while. We’d also like to do chipsealing on Highway No. 8 and other highways, for example. We think it’s going to solve some of our safety issues and reduce some of the maintenance required, but we still have to ensure that it’s going to work...

Mr. Speaker, we’ve got a fairly aggressive plan to work on Highway No. 1 and other projects in the Member’s riding, including Highway No. 7. We certainly have heard the comments he made in his Member’s statement on a number of occasions and we’ve put together a budget over the next four years where we’ll be targeting roughly $30 million to...All the portions that require reconstruction, that Highway No. 1, needs to be widened from the border to Enterprise. We’re also looking at doing some reconstruction from the junction of Highway No. 3 towards Simpson and, of course, Highway No. 7 needs...

I certainly agree. Our budget of $126 million, compared to I think Alberta is $20 million for transportation, is a little bit not what we would like to see, but we continue to try to bring information. I appreciate the Member’s comments, because we need to be able to provide the travelling public on road conditions, black ice and bison location. We need to be able to enforce speed limits and any other concerns of safety on our highways, including the width and being able to stop in emergency situations. We will continue to move forward on that. Thank you.

I understand the Member is still building this House...

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, right now, I can inform the Member we have earmarked $2 million for this year and $2 million for next year. That will bring us further along. As to a final figure, we’d be glad to share that and we will commit to providing all the information that we currently have gathered to the Member for his consideration and for his use. We’ll have that to him very shortly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have to interpret that to mean completion of this road as we saw and budgeted for or I’m sure the number of issues he’s raised in his Member’s statement are what he’s suggesting that we incorporate. At this point, we have targeted $2 million for this upcoming year and a further $2 million to do work on the Dettah road. The work will include engineering work, the surveys and all the designs and gravel production. As the Member knows, this road had very little in terms of real engineering structure and was constructed many years ago when most of the material was clay...