Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This evaluation of this RFP is going to get us to look at some options that would address the cost of operating the airport. As I indicated, and as the Member also indicated, this is costing us about $2 million. So, the option could be if we want to address this immediately, it would be to raise the price of the tickets of the travelling public, or we could raise the cost to the companies that are operating out of the airport. Again, they would probably likely just pass the costs on to the tickets. So, I would say that if we wanted to raise the $2 million, it would cost...

There would mainly be three options, alternatives that we would look at. We would look at a Crown corporation; we’re going to look at airport authority and even possibly using a GNWT revolving fund similar to the way we administer petroleum products.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. There have been several reports. There was an indication that there may have been seven reports done on airport governance but there may be more than that. There have been a few reports done since then. Thank you.

Thank you. Change is a difficult thing when you’re operating at the airport. We have tried to initiate some of those changes that were not too intrusive and it was difficult to do. So we are still looking at those things and it has taken some time, but the airport is operational. We are expending more money than we are taking in at this time, so we’re looking at some options now that would not pass too much of the costs on to the travelling public. Thank you.

Thank you. The fact is it costs $7 million a year to operate the airport and our revenues at this time are $5 million. So in order to make the numbers match, we’d have to raise revenues by $2 million. So that could be an airport improvement fund on the tickets, like I indicated, or we reduce the operating costs or maybe reduce service at the airport to reduce the costs, but those are the costs now. So the government is now looking at those three different options that I indicated: an airport authority that is in place in many airports; a Crown corporation, which would be similar to the Housing...

Mr. Speaker, the volume at the Yellowknife Airport changes fairly regularly. Right now we have approximately 500,000 passengers moving through Yellowknife Airport on an annual basis. We are looking at that now. We are hoping to… The RFP will close. We’re going to do an evaluation. What I’m seeing, just by drawing a timeline from March 2nd for the evaluation, hiring the actual consultant that’s going to be doing the work, I’m seeing that the results of that would likely be sitting on the desks of the 18th Assembly. We’re not sloughing the responsibility, but we’re looking at the timeline.

I...

The latest report was completed in March 2014. It looked at five similar types of airports as far as landings and passenger volumes go and because of their varying governance systems. We’ve looked at those five reports. We’ve now put an RFP out, which will close on March 2nd, to examine the various alternatives in those five different airports to determine which governance structure we feel would be the best to move forward with the Yellowknife Airport. Thank you.

I will commit to getting information out advising the public service, most likely on our website. That would indicate that we support people who wish to disclose in any of these areas. If that still doesn’t generate anything, then we may go to sending out a form letter to all of the staff in the public service. Thank you.

Each year as we do the winter roads in all the areas, as we do in Sahtu, we have winter road teams. After the indication from the Member that the roads were particularly rough going into Fort Good Hope, we’ve deployed a winter road team. They’re looking at the worst spots, and we’re going to put some water on the worst spots and we’re going to grade it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is looking at this legislation and considering two options. The first option is to create stand-alone legislation, in which case the department would like to see some disclosures and how the disclosures have been based. The disclosures are based on the misuse of public funds, an illegal act, gross mismanagement and a substantial and significant danger to health and safety or the environment.

Since we had the memorandum of understanding signed with the UNW, we’ve had one safe disclosure. Because it’s restricted to that area, we’re thinking maybe that’s why...