Norman Yakeleya

Thank you for the specific decisions there. Mr. Speaker, I would get that to the Member. It’s my understanding that he knows that I’ve also come from areas that have this kind of concern and that’s certainly something that I’d be happy to talk with the Member about. This certainly does raise some questions; however, I will provide that information to the Member when I can get it from the department.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise in the House today to inform Members that next week, December 1st to 7th, is National Safe Driving Week across Canada. The first week of December is designated annually as a time to recognize and acknowledge the need to drive safely over the coming holiday season and throughout the entire year. It is also a time to reflect on the progress we have made on improving driver safety here in the Northwest Territories.

The Government of the Northwest Territories has accomplished much to improve the safety of the travelling public. These included...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the Member from Twin Lakes I apologize for not being very clear on this question. I will look at the issue in terms of what it costs the department to move it over to James Creek, and what it’s costing us to have it there, and what it would cost if we were to move it to another location that would be satisfactory to him and other members of the Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the collapse in the Caribou Creek -- it’s on the Dempster Highway -- is a culvert that has been put in some years and throughout the existence of our culverts and bridges, there’s a continuing lifecycle and inspections and this is one infrastructure that came…Time ran out, I guess, on the integrity of the structure and it's lucky that nobody was injured when we had the collapse of the culvert.

Mr. Speaker, chipseal and pavement overlays are only considered on sections of our highways that we have reconstructed and the road base and improved the alignment, otherwise we would lose the service of improvement. Mr. Speaker, I want to get back to the Member with more information on the planned future work of Highway No. 6 in terms of chipsealing in that area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the need for capital reconstruction of Highway No. 6 to Fort Resolution is identified in the department’s 20-year capital needs assessment. The first 32 kilometres of the old Pine Point townsite has chipsealed surface, Mr. Speaker. I will, again, look at this issue here with the Members, as I also indicated to the Member for the Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the suggestion that the Member has referred to is a huge task on all of us within government in terms of the limited amount of money that we have in terms of our infrastructure needs in the North here. It’s about balancing our funding to protect and also to fix up our existing facilities, like Highway No. 8, and even to respond to new needs of other areas that do not have a highway. I have other areas to look at also, so I would again take the Member’s suggestion very seriously in terms of looking at his suggestion as one of our areas for long-term...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for Mackenzie Delta for the question. Mr. Speaker, I had driven last year on the Dempster Highway. I know what the Minister is talking about first hand in terms of the conditions on the Dempster Highway. Mr. Speaker, our department’s first priority, of course, to all residents who are travelling our highway, is safety. Safety is number one in our books in terms of our transportation system. I would say that we didn’t do any work on the Dempster Highway in terms of putting calcium coating on the surface of the Dempster and the reconstruction of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly would rely on the Member’s support when we started looking at these types of a strategy. However, Mr. Speaker, I need to remind the Members, and remind the people in the Northwest Territories, that we need to continue investing down the Mackenzie Valley in terms of all our infrastructure and sometime we need to go back to the very basics of looking at the regions that do not have any type of all-weather road into the communities. However, I will keep that in mind when we come to that discussion when we have our regular meetings with committee in...

Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I also say, you know, we can have bad roads and existing roads, but some regions have no roads. So I’d like to look at that also in terms of how we do our investments of highway strategies in the Northwest Territories. Certainly, we’ll continue to improve what we have in the Northwest Territories in terms of a highway. There will be some areas that we need to do some reconstruction. We need to do some dust control. We need to do some further maintenance on some of the paved roads. Certainly, providing that we get the support from the House here and working with...