Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is that the two accidents were due to driver inattention or driver error. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have the information on these three options that were put forward. The first option was to relocate the ferry from the existing location to haul to Fort Simpson. That would be a $16 million price tag, capital cost, to do this, and the length of the ferry trip would be definitely too long because it would be over an hour's sail versus a seven- to eight-minute sail.

The second option we investigated was to relocate the existing ferry location to deep water upstream of the Liard River, with a capital cost of $3 million. This option would not likely increase operating season, mostly to do with...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The $67 million is part of the capital costs for constructing the Whati road. For O and M maintenance, that will be built into the O and M budgets. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As part of our bridge monitoring inspection regime, we've been closely monitoring the side slopes on the approaches and the embankment movements of the Deh Cho Bridge. Some longitudinal cracks have appeared and we've been observing them on the bridge approaches, and as a proactive and preventive measure of our ongoing part of our maintenance program, we're working to stabilize these approaches and embankments to stop future cracking of the longitudinal cracks that are appearing.

As to the contractor that's on-site, they are called GeoStabilization International. This was...

Mr. Speaker, our government has committed in its mandate to supporting exploration and the mining sector. It is the lifeblood of our economy. Our people and businesses are innovative, self-sufficient, and resilient, and want to do their part to contribute to a strong Northwest Territories. We need the kind of well-paying, long-term jobs that come with sustainable economic development, and our government is working towards economic self-determination for all NWT residents.

Our strategic approach to unlocking the potential of responsible mining and exploration in the NWT is defined in our Mineral...

Highway patrol meets and regularly trains with other enforcement agencies. The department participated in a blitz together on a regular basis with these other agencies. In particular, recently we just did a bison awareness check stop both with ENR and the RCMP to check both commercial and public traffic on the highway, and we will continue to look at opportunities to collaborate with all enforcement agencies in the future.

As I said, we will continue to do our inspections on the winter road this coming season around the heavy truck traffic in particular to make sure people are well aware of the...

Again, we met with the joint venture group and their insurance providers to complete a discussion around the incidents that happened last year. There were a couple of trucks that went off the road. There were a number of fires that took place. The department does not have an accident investigator, as many of us know in this House, but we do have our guys that go out there and do the dangerous goods checks, secure of cargo on the loads, check the log books, those sorts of things.

I can update the House that we followed up with the joint venture operators who investigated the accidents last...

I'm not aware of a requirement to replace any pier on the Deh Cho Bridge. This bridge has been functioning well since it opened in 2012, and as far as I'm concerned there's no need for that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The cost of this preventative work is actually covered by various bridge capital projects. It's ongoing preventative bridge maintenance across our system, and it's there to extend the life of our bridge assets.

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to recognize Charles Thornton, Ph.D., P.E., from Easton, Maryland; Larry Grimms from Haymarket, Virginia; Darrell Beaulieu, president and CEO of Denendeh Investments; Margaret Gorman, chief operating officer, Denendeh Investments; and Dave Ramsay, director of Denendeh Investments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.