Wally Schumann

As I have said, the costs must be offset by revenues, and this is not the case. We have not changed our hours of operation, and moving forward until such time that this happens, we will not be keeping the airport beyond the posted hours that we have right now.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following four documents entitled "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 503-18(2): Northern Frontiers Visitors Centre," "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 744-18(2): Northern Frontier Visitors Centre," "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 773-18(2): Road Safety on Ingraham Trail," and "Follow-Up Question for Oral Question 814-18(2): Yellowknife Airport Hours of Operation." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don't know if we have met or had an expectation of how many people we were going to hire. We hired the people who we needed to run this operation, but I can tell the Members of this House that, at peak employment of July 31st, we had 141 employees at marine transportation. Sixty were from the Northwest Territories, and 81 were from outside the Northwest Territories, and most of those 81 were to crew the boats.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The sailing season is still ongoing. We still have, I believe, another boat to leave Hay River here in the next week or so, but I believe, for the most part, all the communities that were vulnerable to us not buying this asset have been serviced and their freight has been delivered, for the most part. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Duly noted from the Member's suggestions. We can look into those sorts of things. I think one of the other things that maybe we can start looking into is similar to what we did in Hay River with the crosswalk situation. We had the digital signs posted on the highway, and we tried to relay as much information that way as well before people leave the communities.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Ferry operations are dependent mainly on water levels. Water levels can be too high to make it safe; water levels can be too low to make it safe. That is the main criteria of operating the ferry, to get vehicles and people across it safely. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think you are going to have to take that up with the carbon tax moving forward.

As I have stated, we will look at this, hours of operation, when revenues are coming in to offset the costs. Things are moving forward. This is early days. We will continue to monitor this. The advisory board is in place moving forward. Very shortly, they will be commencing to have their first meeting.

As the Member stated, we have freed up some cash. The physical needs of what the airport needs moving forward are far beyond what the Government of the Northwest Territories could handle before. This gives us an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the Member is right. We did send a letter stating that presently we are not changing hours of operation of the airport. The reason we are doing that is because costs have to match offsetting revenues that are brought in. This is early days on the revolving fund. We know this is going to be an economic driver. We have had people already contact us about direct flights. As most Members already know, Air Canada has said they are going to put a direct flight on from Vancouver in November. We have a number of carriers that are looking at promoting this as a destination...

I believe I have been quoted in this House saying that we would go back in front of committee after our sailing season to update committee and all Members of this House of all the challenges and successes that we have had in the sailing season. I believe, for the most part, we have had a great season to be able to accomplish what we have done to service the communities and keep down the cost of living and get the commodities and products to these communities to give them more certainty moving forward. I look forward to updating the committee on the operations going forward and the lessons...

I don't have that type of detail here with me, but I can certainly get hold of the department and get back to him. As I said, I think we have one more boat that is sailing this year, and I suspect that anything that was delayed for those two communities will be on there, but I will follow up with that.