Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ve completed a report on the governance of the Yellowknife Airport, and we now have a consultant looking at that and looking at the options. Most likely, if there’s going to be privatization or a change in the way the governance at the Yellowknife Airport occurs, then it will probably be something that would be decided at the next Assembly.

Madam Chair, we do not have a time frame as to when this solution will come about.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The new Building Canada Plan that we’re launching into now is not reflected on this page.

Madam Chair, the bundles are more than one fiscal year, but I’ll have the deputy minister respond so we can provide a little more detail on how the bundles work.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just quickly, the plan is, on the first bundle of Building Canada Plan, we’ll first go through a supplementary appropriation. We have earmarked $4.5 million annually in the first bundle. So, it’s the first four years of the plan, although the plan runs nine years.

The overflow situation that we had talked about just recently, the Member thought there were some solutions that were applicable in the Yukon. Maybe the weather might be a little bit different, but possibly if it’s further north on the Dempster and a solution is working, we can look at that. The deputy minister...

Madam Chair, there’s one outstanding proposal from the Sahtu referred to as Canyon Creek proposal. That is something that could possibly end up in the Building Canada Fund, Corridors for Canada III. In that proposal, if they build a Canyon Creek Road, then Canyon Creek Road would be on the same alignment as the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member speaks about the road that would go around the arm that’s near Deline, as opposed to going straight across. For sure, if there was an all-season road across there, that would be something that would be good for even the speed with which we put the winter road in.

I guess the issue is there also has to be, in order to gain access to that side during the winter months, we’d have to cross the Bear River to get to that all-season road that they’re wishing to build. The community looked at that as one of the possibilities in case there was a viable way to put hydro...

The deputy minister has the amounts here. I will get either the director or the deputy minister to do a response. Maybe the deputy minister.

Certainly if we had the money to do all the roads we would be able to do it. The Whati all-season road has a price tag of about $150 million to go from Highway No. 3. It’s approximately 105 kilometres into Whati. There are certainly benefits to doing that. Again, it’s tied into our capital, our ability to borrow the money if need be. So, that affects the borrowing limit of the GNWT. We’d like to do all these roads, but we have to put them into some sort of priority as the borrowing limit makes the decision on whether or not we have the money to borrow to build these highways. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right is Russell Neudorf, deputy minister, Department of Transportation; to my left, Daniel Auger, assistant deputy minister, Department of Transportation; and to my far right, Jim Martin, director of corporate services, Department of Transportation.