Wally Schumann

Mr. Speaker, our government is following through on its commitment to invest in transportation infrastructure by strengthening connections with our federal partners.

Improving our existing highway system helps to keep communities connected while improving safety for all road users. This also provides jobs and fosters skills and capacity development for all Northerners. Today, I am pleased to provide an update on many highway improvements that were undertaken this year.

Mr. Speaker, we have improved more than 200 kilometres of highway this summer, including three community access roads and three...

I want to remind the House of last year, this exact situation. We committed to having a newer, lighter equipment to facilitate the winter road system. We have that machine up and ready and we were training our staff again in the region.

Last year, if I remember the dates between, in the Member's riding, I think the river closed on the 4th and the 8th, and both rivers were open by the 18th. That's only 10 to 12 days of shutdown for access to light vehicles. I think the department did a great job, and I commend them on their efforts, and we will continue to do that and make sure that the impacts...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I answered in my previous question, it's based around communication. We have to communicate with the people and the residents of Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic particularly. It's not up to us to tell the gas station how much gas they have in stock or the grocery store how much food they have in stock.

Our job as the government is to indicate that there could be an incoming situation in which there is significant probability that that may happen in the Member's region this year because of the coldness of the water. The department has informed me that it's well below...

The department staff, as I said, met with the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board to discuss the environmental assessment options. Staff will be meeting with the board of the Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated and Chief and Council of the Pehdzeh Ki First Nation next week, as well as officials from the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency Northern Project Management office.

These discussions will influence how the department will approach the environmental assessment and the timing of any associated activities, consistent with an overarching objective of proceeding through...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to remind the House that this was a key milestone in the mandate that we secured, so it was nice to see funding for this project.

The funding that has been secured to date will help with the construction of the Bear River Bridge, the planning and environmental studies that led to obtaining permits, the road construction between Wrigley and the newly completed Canyon Creek AllAccess Road, as well as construction to an access road from Wrigley to Mount Gaudet.

Canyon Creek AllSeason Access Road represents the first step in converting the existing Mackenzie Valley...

My understanding on some of these positions like this in some of the smaller communities is we were having a hard time to fill some of these positions, but one of the conditions we took with the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk was, and we give them a significant amount of money to do this on a year-to-year basis, which is ongoing by the way, they have the flexibility to hire the individual they want.

We have had cases where I have had people of some communities come to me and they don't like our EDOs and another community that are assisting them. This gives the community the flexibility to hire the exact...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an interesting situation. As we all know in this House, for many of us that follow this file very closely, with the construction of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway, it's brought an enormous amount of people up to the Member's riding. I think the big challenge around the community has been, and I have been up there quite a bit and talked to residents in that area, the amount of influx of people was overwhelming for the community for the most part. We had over 5,000 people, I believe, that came there this summer.

We have had a number of meetings with the...

There is no feasible option at this time besides dredging, so, if we were to consider this, we'd have to go back and go through all the process that I just laid out in the previous question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and we want to take this opportunity to reach out to the greater Northwest Territories to update the general public on the situation that's happening at the Liard ferry. As most people know, this time of year, the rivers drop off sharply. In the case of the Liard River, generally this time of year when it does drop down, it actually comes back up after a couple of days, but that hasn't happened in the last three days. It's actually at its lowest level, and we're probably operating our ferry presently at the lowest level that that ferry has operated; it's at 1.65 meters...

This ain't a million dollar answer because I have answered this question a number of times in the House. The winter operations were due to around the Ikhil well and that situation. I have said in this House many a time that the winter operations weren’t effective. The Dempster was closed 40 per cent of the time during that operation. The reason we did that was to secure energy for the community of Inuvik, and that has been addressed through the contractors. We are not committed to putting any more money into the winter operations of that ferry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.