Mr. Chairman, last year, I wrote to the Minister in regard to the culverts being blocked off, as we had a hard time during the thaw out season. When the snow melted, we had a real situation in which culverts were blocked off, and it really deteriorated the condition of the road in Fort Providence. A lot of the roads in the community collapsed, and there was not too much you could do about it. The heavy vehicles were sinking into these roads, getting stuck, and they had to block off different sections of the road, because it was really quite bad.
What the community had to do, because it did not have any monies allocated that year for this problem, the only approach they could take was the Hamlet put in $5,400, and Municipal and Community Affairs came up with about $5,530, and in that kind of situation the community had no choice, but to do the work. They did it because they had monies they could utilize from the previous years that they had saved up, but also they had to sacrifice some of their contributions savings towards the curling rink, in order to do that. We had a situation in which, if we had voted regarding the situation of the flooding, maybe we would not have been in that situation.
I also wrote to the Minister with regard to getting a steam pressure system for the community. Again, its response, they do not have standards, or criteria, for purchasing that type of equipment. I do not know whether or not it is a first in the north for a situation like this to arise, but every spring we run into the same kind of situation. It is not because the culvert is not covered up, but because the water builds up in those culverts which you cannot avoid, unless you have a plug to plug the culverts with.
So water builds up and then it freezes again, and it does not take much, when you still have ice and snow in the ditches for culverts to be frozen right through. The equipment that they have in Fort Providence is a small little steam generator that they use to clean vehicles, and that is what they use. Last year, it took them about a week before they got through one culvert with that little steamer.
I think the Minister indicated that it costs about $20,000 to $22,000 to get a good steamer. It is a lot cheaper to purchase something like this than to go through about $113,000 worth of work. The community had no choice in that. Has there been any developments in that area with regard to saving costs? A suggestion is that communities that require those steamers should be allowed to purchase that equipment, as part of the capital process of the department, then the department would not be spending...
I realize that the department spent $56,000 as their cost, but they should have covered the whole thing, $113,000.