Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in our long term, eventually in the long term of highways in the Northwest Territories, we certainly want to look at communities that do not have highways. I mean, right now we’re talking about highways on existing facilities and existing roads. So in the long term, certainly we do have the funds, we have the support from other sources of funding who would look at highways that do require good roads and good drainage and reconstruction of chipsealing. We also have to look at communities and regions that do not have a highway. So we certainly have to start...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The bridge was inspected…Sorry; the culvert was inspected in 2007. As with any infrastructure, it’s kind of hard to crystal ball if something is going happen within a certain time frame. I believe that our department did look at all our culverts and bridges and sometimes, for unknown circumstances, events are beyond our control and things do happen. This time it happened to be the Caribou Creek culvert.

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the members of the public that the department does due diligence in terms of inspecting all of our facilities, all our highways. For example, yesterday, because of the low water in the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence, we were unable to operate our ferry because there are things that are beyond the department’s control. Ultimately, I am responsible, as the Minister of Transportation, and I certainly treat our operations as very professional and in that we have read good reports. This culvert was inspected. We’re looking at future...