Tom Beaulieu

Like I indicated, we are doing a lot of the legwork, environmental assessment. We’ve looked at some of the roads, some of the planning that’s needed to build the highway to Whati. However, it’s based on whether or not we have the ability to borrow money to build that road. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We may have that information here but it’s a fairly standard amount. Each year we go out, or in blocks of time we go out to tender to maintain all our highways, and the contract to maintain Highway No. 7 would be similar to what has occurred previously. If you give us a minute, perhaps we’re able to find the amount.

We have the amount. It’s $800,000.

We’ve certainly talked about the highway a lot. I can’t give a definite date on how close we are, but we consider that to be one of the roads. We have a few roads right now. We have a proposal into the federal government on the Mackenzie Valley Highway, so we’re looking at that as well as a couple of other all-season roads.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For more detail, I’d ask the deputy minister to provide a response.

This is a committee between the Gwich’in and GNWT. The Premier and the president did sign this memorandum of intent on April 1, 2014. We set up a working group between the Gwich’in, GNWT and the federal government. The intention is to have three people starting at the Gwich’in, three people starting in the GNWT and three people starting with the federal government all at the same time and working in those positions for one year and then they would rotate. We would also make accommodations if any of the Gwich’in people wished to stay exactly where they were after year one. We’re expecting to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The strategy is intended to run from this year, 2015, probably this summer, in around that time. I guess, essentially the strategy is being done in 25 year blocks, NWT Transportation Strategy, so from 1990 to 2015, which is just beginning to end now. But in essence, a strategy does not expire, so if we don’t have the next strategy fully developed, we would just continue with the strategy. But the intention, the plan, I guess, is to complete a strategy every 25 years and look at all of the various modes of transportation that we have in the territory, being highways...

Right now there are nine of those 19 jobs. Well, as of October 31st, when those vacancies were identified, we proceeded to try to fill nine of those jobs, so either those jobs have been filled or are in the process of being filled. Then there is also the possibility that there have been more vacancies created. On average, the jobs that we go to fill are being filled in the same time period as other jobs across the territory.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is no money in this budget for dredging Hay River, the port or the rest of the Hay River.

We can send the report to committee or any of the Members that wish to review the report. The report is mostly a report on what the current situation is. It’s not something that is, in the sense, something we could do something with as far as the governance goes. So, what we’re doing is we’re asking a consultant to look at the report and put it in terms where we can look at and determine whether or not it would be something that would be feasible to move forward with.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We will work with the city to try to find a safer way for pedestrians to come into the city for work and back to Niven. We know that the ideal situation, of course, and the safest situation is for the pedestrians just to stay on the city roads and come into town on the other side of Niven, recognizing that‘s a long ways, especially for the people that live on this end of Niven. But it’s just that we are finding that any time you cross, we create an unsafe… Whether we’re crossing right at Niven or crossing at the Legislative Assembly, both of the crossings on that road...