Wally Schumann

Mr. Speaker, this is early in the process. We don't have a specific price for this. We want to sell these properties together. It will be an open bidding process with an evaluation that brings the best benefits to the residents of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a detailed question, and I have to commend the Member for giving me the questions ahead of time, because we had to compile a lot of information on this set of questions. So I'll go through the Member's list. The government has spent $126,025 removing hazardous and other materials from the site. There has been no assessment of full remediation costs, as this is not work that we are intending to undertake. We have completed Mactung site visits, one by Lands, another resulting in two geological reports on the mine sites and surrounding area, but no formal site...

Yes, I did say that it has resulted in a 30 percent increase. We are working to improve it even more. Even though I say it's not our system, we are working with the CATSA Plus people to make improvements out there. The security staff right now is actually doing the monitoring and tracking of wait times, but we are moving to put in an automated system out at the airport for both security queue times and also we're going to be looking at the luggage wait times. So that's an improvement through the revolving fund that we're also going to be able to track these things and have better data for all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I can certainly tell you about all the improvements we've done out there with the revolving fund, probably one of the best things this Assembly has done to help improve tourism, particularly in Yellowknife. We spent a lot of money out there improving the system. The Member has raised the question around the CATSA Plus system, and let's make it quite clear in this House, I am not in charge of CATSA Plus. That's a federal initiative. That's their responsibility, but we are working very closely with them to improve the visitors' and the travelling public's experience...

We are the owners of this property right now, and, if we want to continue on activities of this site, we have to renew this permit. We don't know how long this process is going to take place. We have engaged with the federal government. We have agreed to look at selling these two pieces of property together to get the best potential from both sites by doing them at once. We will continue to work towards that, and we think that this is in the best interest of the residents of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know it's Valentine's Day, but let's take it a little bit easier here. I just want to reassure this House that we are investing $22.5 million on the Dempster over the next five years, $22.5 million. Safety is the number one priority of our department, and we will work with all Members in this House to ensure the highways in the Northwest Territories are as safe for the travelling public as possible, and if there are any concerns, please come to me. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to inform this House that we're actually going to spend another $22.5 million on Highway 8 for reconstruction and rehabilitation between 2019 and 2024, which is a significant investment in that Member's riding. What I can say about this guardrail in this section of highway is that I can have our staff go out there and have a look at this and meet with the community members and have a look at it, if we can do a safety audit on what's happening there and get back to the Member.

Yes, it was about five years ago that the department had this same exact situation come up, and they actually wrote letters to all the manufacturers, stating that this was part of the public road system, supplied them with that and maps of the Northwest Territories and asked them to reach out to all of their call centres and share this with local service providers that they actually contract this to. To the Member's point, I will actually ask the department to do this. We will step in and write the same letters and reassure the manufacturers that this is part of the public system. Thank you...

Yes, the Department of Infrastructure follows the guidelines for safe ice construction that was developed with expertise from within and outside of the Government of the Northwest Territories. Other jurisdictions actually use our guidelines, and so does private industry.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize a couple of Pages from Hay River South, Jon Tatti and Shaelyn Mabbitt. Thank you.