Thank you, Mr. Chair. The upgrade of the highway in recent years has been largely driven by the fact that the volume has been increasing, and it becomes more cost effective to pave than to provide a gravel highway after you hit a critical point.
I am certain that as we get more volume of business and visitor traffic that we will need to plan with the federal government for the day when perhaps a ferry needs to be replaced by a bridge. It needs to be done in the overall context of the national highway strategy. We know that on our own, we are unable to lever our money from the federal government to complete the highway system.
In recent years, though, we have worked with Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., and the Yukon to develop what we call a Western Canada Economic Outlook. That is, we recognize that the more development that occurs in the Territories, the more benefits flow to Alberta, to Saskatchewan, and B.C. Sometimes they make substantially more money than we do from our own developments, such as BHP.
If there is economic interest by other provinces in the neighbourhood to ensure there is some infrastructure developed in the North, we have their support. They are aware that it is in their interest to support us.
We have been doing that in order to make sure we can find some way to be part of a national capital budget allocations. We have a Member of Parliament. I think we can work on a strategy to complete and upgrade the Mackenzie Highway system, and the ferries are certainly going to be one that we should look at. Thank you.