Michael McLeod

The concern that the Member raises has been very close to being a reality on a number of occasions. We are able to compensate for it by adding additional resources and making the resupply happen. But I guess in a hypothetical situation, the community that was not able to get its supplies in on time or whatever the case may be, we would probably be forced to go to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs that has emergency measures or emergency operations within their responsibilities and we would have to look at flying or another mode of getting the product in or the supplies in.

Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is no, we don’t have any plans at this point to chipseal the airport.

Mr. Chairman, the commitment for the detail of information that the Member’s requesting has been committed to. We’ll provide that in written form. Mr. Chairman, there has been one reduction in the Member’s riding. That person will be treated fairly and will be compensated as per our layoff policy. I believe that individual is already working at other employment.

Mr. Chairman, this is really not an issue for us to intervene on. It has been raised by some of the contractors that the payment to them was not as quick as they would like. There has also been concern that our approval process is very rigid in terms of having all the required approvals. This is a project that falls under the Canadian Bridge Code and everything has to be approved for quality assurance and stamped and signed off. It can be fairly lengthy in some cases. I am not aware of any subcontractors that have not been paid. It is an issue we have raised with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Communication of our programs is indeed an area that we have been trying to focus on in the last few months. We’ve really been working towards trying to set up a system where the people in the communities would be more aware of what our deadlines are, what’s really in our new Housing Choices programs. Currently we have embarked on informing the Members that the deadline is soon approaching, if not already in most communities, to put in their applications for the different programs. This has also been put in the newspapers so that the general public is aware. We plan to...

Mr. Chairman, we have done a number of things over the last while to try to enhance the Winter Road Program, including signs for safety reasons. We have tried to step up the highway patrols on the winter road system. We have also tried to incorporate new technology into building the roads and increase our maintenance cycles. We have requested some of the industry people that were utilizing certain portions of the road to invest. We have managed to build quite a few bridges over the last while that have extended the season. The winter road system is still usually dictated by weather. We have...

Mr. Chairman, the deputy informs me there was a recent assessment of the Aklavik Airport on the runway and the indicators are that it’s sufficient to meet the needs. Thank you.

The process for a water licence is open for Members or individuals or the general public to intervene. It’s issued by the Gwich’in Water Board. My understanding is it’s for 10 years, I just don’t have an expiry date.

Mr. Chairman, I commit before and I’ll commit again, we’ll look at the different options. Right now we do not have a solution other than providing or using gravel as a stabilizer for that landing. There may be other things. We are not aware of it. We’ll do as the Member’s requested and look at the different options.

The method that Fort Providence is using for a ramp is not...

Mr. Chairman, we certainly have been trying to deal with the large amount of requirements for bridges in the Northwest Territories. We have actively worked on 37 new bridges that we’ll have in place over the last while. We have now a total of 77 bridges in the highway system. There are still five major bridges that need to be addressed at some point. It is a concern. The Liard River Bridge, the Ndulee crossing, the Bear River Bridge, the Peel River Bridge, as the Member has indicated, and also the Mackenzie crossing at Tsiigehtchic are all requirements that probably should have been addressed...

Mr. Chairman, both the $600,000 and $200,000 are in the budgets for design checks.