Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member also spoke about the winter road maintenance and what happens when there is heavier snowfall and so on and it blocks off the roads more than would be anticipated. We build those types of things into our contract, and on the other side, if the season went very well and it was colder than anticipated, then the highway could be extended beyond our contract. We tried to run some of the contracts and the ones down here to about March 31st, and they usually end within that fiscal year. If the road is extended well into April, as sometimes happens further up north...

Mr. Speaker, they are voluntary. They go out to every public servant. They are done across the country and we have about 80 percent participation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my left is Russell Neudorf, deputy minister, Transportation; and to my right is assistant deputy minister of Transportation, Daniel Auger.

The surveys are conducted through the Department of Human Resources. I don’t have the frequency here with me, but I do believe they do it fairly frequently.

---Interjection

Recognizing that the disclosure of salary wages and the number of individuals that are within that salary range across the GNWT or the boards also give the public a very good indication of where their money is going; recognizing that, if committee still wishes to, in a small jurisdiction such as ours where you will see that Yukon, Nunavut and Prince Edward Island also don’t disclose because they consider those jurisdictions to be too small; recognizing all that, if the Priorities and Planning committee across the floor want a legislative proposal to look at disclosing salaries, then we’ll look...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided]

…to the late Johnny Andrew Boucher, originally from Rocher on the Taltson River.

Johnny was born May 24, 1951, and passed away on February 19, 2014, at age 62. He passed away from difficulties of asthma. I often saw Johnny walking on the streets and he told me that he was not able to get better from his asthma because of his living conditions.

Johnny Boucher was born in Rocher River and was raised in Rocher River and Fort Resolution by his grandfather, Bonaface Boucher. Johnny enjoyed his childhood of being on and living off the land, and...

I would be prepared to discuss the ATIPP Act with the Minister of Justice. I will talk to the department about the Public Service Act and any considerations with disclosing salaries. At this time, in the ATIPP, in most incidents with a jurisdiction this size, it is considered an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy to disclose salaries. Thank you.

Thank you. All NWT winter roads are public roads and the Department of Transportation tries to keep the roads open as long as possible. Budgets are a consideration, but if the road can be extended to remain open for an extra week or something at the end of March, then the department will do everything they can to extend that road. But, of course, money is a consideration. This is not a bottomless pit. We have to, at some point, follow the contract. There are provisions in the contract that allow the road to be open as long as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. The maintenance that needs to be done on the winter road is being done. There will sometimes be just putting heavy equipment on the winter roads, such as heavy maintenance equipment, will do more harm than good in shortening the length that the road may be open. So, essentially what is happening is in any areas where they are dark and attractive to the sun, we try to cover it with snow. But the maintenance that needs to be done to extend the road as long as possible will be done. Thank you.

The department would be pleased to, like I said, look at any proposal that may come from MADD on ways that we can work together along with Students Against Drunk Driving to do check stops or other things we have been doing under the Drive Alive! program at the Department of Transportation. Thank you.