Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is something that is possible once we get the airport up to where we think it should be. Maybe this is a fee that in a future government could be either lowered or discontinued. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This one, I want to answer right away. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know where the Member is coming from when he thinks there is going to be an extra fee on for his residents flying through from Fort Simpson south. Anyone who is flying from Fort Simpson directly through, if they have a stopover here and get on another carrier and continue south, there is not going to be a fee for that. The only way there would be is if they came here, spent a couple of days here, and had to rebook a ticket or something going south. Then there would be the $20 fee plus the additional aeronautical fees that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We expect that this would be less for the outlying communities than 0.08 per cent. The other thing I want to mention, though, when we are talking about this 0.08 per cent of cost of living to residents of Yellowknife, this is only if you choose to fly. If you do not choose to fly, this does not impact you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will answer him very quickly. First of all, we have met with NWT Tourism. We have actually met with them twice to discuss items that are issues around tourism. One of the things that we are working on with them is figuring out how we can attract direct flights from Vancouver to Yellowknife, which will allow for a lower cost for travellers from Asia, in particular, coming from Vancouver directly to Yellowknife. We believe that is going to help them out, because it is actually going to put more money in the tourists' pockets, and possibly even increase the numbers coming...

I thank the Member for this question because as the proposed Revolving Fund moving forward this would allow us the opportunity under that to have this type of decision come forward and have the airport open 24 hours.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Minister, I am not well aware that they have an application in to develop that tourism camp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At present, the Yellowknife terminal is actually closed for 90 minutes each night, approximately from 2:00 to 3:30 a.m. in the morning, if there are no scheduled flights arriving late or anything departing too early. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I said, this is early days on this. We are going to draft some stuff and have a look at other jurisdictions, how things are conducted around minerals in other jurisdictions in Canada. We will be seeking input, as I have said, from a number of people and stakeholders in the Northwest Territories, and we are open to any suggestions and stuff as we move forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is looking at a number of things under the Mineral Resource Act moving forward: acquiring mineral rights, ministry and royalties, those sorts of things. We have no intention of regulating mining activities under the proposed MRA. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I’ve said, we’ve worked with Transport Canada to leverage the dollars to monitor and assess the performance of this road with the conditions that we’re presently under. Like I said, with climate change, it makes it very difficult to keep up with the maintenance of it, especially with the lack of capital dollars that we have available to us to do this; but we will continue to do our research and monitoring this road and try to come up with new rehabilitative techniques on how we’re going to address this problem moving forward. I can keep Members informed on some of those test results from...