Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to an oral question asked by Mr. Pudlat on December 11, 1991, regarding the Lake Harbour airstrip. On Wednesday, December 11, the Member for Baffin South asked me a question about the improvements to the Lake Harbour airport. In his question, the Member said that the airstrip was short and on uneven ground. He further stated that the airport facility was dangerous.
As the Member knows, the community of Lake Harbour is surrounded by steep mountains and from north to south the 518 metres airstrip, or 1700 feet, slopes down on a 2.23 per cent grade. These conditions do not make the Lake Harbour airstrip a danger to safe air service. Transport Canada, the federal regulatory body, has licensed the airport for day and night visual flight rules operations. If the regulatory authority had doubts about the air safety of the facility, it would have cancelled the licence and closed the airport. For that matter, if I, as the Minister of Transportation, thought the airport was a danger to the people using it, I would not want it to continue in operation.
I understand that the people of Lake Harbour have wanted improvements to their airport for several years. I hope that the Member understands that because Lake Harbour is in mountainous country, the earth work necessary to level the runway and to make it even would be extremely expensive. As the slight slope is not a hazard to air safety, the Department of Transportation has no immediate plans to level it. Thank you.