Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, this is a negotiated contract situation where both parties agreed on the terms. We certainly don’t want the company to have undue duress as a result of not being able to move forward and provide the maintenance as the Member is raising. I was not aware that there was an issue there. The deputy minister, Mr. Neudorf, can certainly undertake to have a sit-down discussion regarding the issues about, I believe, not being able to get out when they feel it’s required. That’s an issue we can take a look at. Thank you.

We’ve had several discussions with the Member and the communities involved regarding the requested extension to the runway lengths to 4,500 feet. The situation is, as the 2010 ruling comes forward and gets closer, people in the southern jurisdictions are putting some of their aircraft out for sale as they would rather buy more efficient aircraft to operate. The Beech 1900 and other ones are becoming fairly cheap and that’s becoming very attractive through some of the communities and corporations in the North. They are wanting to purchase these aircraft and require us to upgrade the runway...

Mr. Chairman, we will try to convince the government to invest as much as they can in the Northwest Territories. We have a lot of needs in the area of marine facilities. Certainly if we can convince the government to go further than just the communities that deal with commercial fishermen, that would really help us in a lot of different ways and address some of the issues that are being raised by the Member here today. Thank you.

I believe the question is if we have our staff go door to door to see if they’ve all applied. No, we don’t do that.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. We would work with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to address the issue to look at providing an emergency type of situation that would allow us to get into the community. If it is feasible, it would be forced to fly the fuel in, or if it is a community that is on the ice or along the river system that provide enough short-term assistance until the product was able to get there in the summer. But there is a committee, a working group that is made up from different departments that would look at each situation. It is something that is being monitored.

Mr. Chairman, we undertook an assessment study approximately a year and a half ago on all the airports to determine if the links were appropriate and the conditions. In the case of Lutselk’e, the runway is in good condition and it’s adequate to meet the needs of that community.

We’ll have that in all the detail.

This is a very important part of our being able to communicate with the clients and the people that come forward to apply for our programs. We certainly make notices given that if there is a requirement for an interpreter, we can certainly facilitate that. We try to ensure that our technical people at the community level and regional level are able to communicate and be able to provide information. We have new programs that can walk people through the different steps available through the budgeting process, through the banking, through the credit systems, all the different components that...

Mr. Chairman, I think we do some costing in terms of comparison of what it would cost to try to build an all-season road. We have taken some measures only because we have been assisted by the federal government. For example, on the Tlicho winter road, we will be moving forward to take what is now an ice road or a road built over mostly lakes and stream crossings, put it on land and make a winter road that is a little safer than the current one utilized. Mr. Chairman, it is quite difficult to look at the potential of building an all-season road without the federal government’s involvement...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Building Canada Fund was set up to run over the course of seven years. We have put in three budget years of submissions. There are still four years. The Member is correct, of course, that the federal government has indicated their desire to fast-track the programs. There has been no agreement reached yet. That is still something we are looking at in terms of additional funding or funding at the end of fast-track in two years. There is some concern that fast-tracking with the amount of money we have, given the resources we have, would really be a challenge. We expect...