Thank you. We are on page 09-8. Are there any general comments? Mr. Gargan.

General Comments

Mr. Chairman, I do not have a written submission. However, I do have some observations with regard to this department. Mr. Chairman, I purchased a vehicle in August. To date, it has 30,000 miles on it. I wanted to mention that even though we have patrols done by the department, we do not seem to see those vehicles on the highway system. With the conditions of the highways steadily improving, we have also seen a steady increase in the speed limits of the trucks who travel the highway. In most cases, Mr. Chairman, I stop completely when I see a large truck approaching, for my own safety. We do not see many patrols of the highways with regard to safety. What exactly are we spending on highway patrols?

Mr. Todd.

Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that we spend somewhere in the region of $216,000 on highway patrols at the present time.

Thank you. Mr. Gargan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When the program first started a couple of years ago, there were 15 traffic tickets given out. For last year and the year before, how many traffic tickets were given out? Has it increased at all? Has it reduced? What is the trend?

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

The patrol operations in 1992 resulted in 60 summary offenses under the Motor Vehicles Act for speeding. Most of these tickets were issued to drivers travelling 30 clicks per hour or more over the posted speed limit. Patrollers gave out 65 warnings to trucks under the large vehicle control regulations and issued 33 summary offence tickets. The offenses were mainly for axle weight and vehicle dimension infractions. That is for 1992. I do not have the figures for 1990 or 1991, but I can provide them to the honourable Member, either today or tomorrow. Whether it is a trend moving in that direction, being a new Minister, I am not sure. Those are the statistics for 1992.

Mr. Gargan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask the Minister if his department has ever looked at the feasibility or the possibility of restricting truckers on our highway system on certain days. The largest volume of traffic that travels south is from Yellowknife. I am sure as far as the insurance companies are concerned, much of the insurance coverage deals with windshields and rock damage. I no longer buy windshield insurance because it costs more than the windshield itself. I am sure this is one of the biggest problems on our highway system. I have asked our research people to look at what other jurisdictions have restrictions with regard to the transportation of large vehicles. Is this something which you are looking at?

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

Mr. Chairman, I understand that this issue has been raised before. The department has been looking at it since 1992 when Mrs. Marie-Jewell raised the issue. The department has checked with other provincial jurisdictions. It is our understanding that no jurisdiction in Canada, at the present time, prohibits the movement of tractor-trailer transports on Sundays or on the weekend, as I think the honourable Member is perhaps suggesting. The province of Ontario, at one time, had a Sunday-ban on what they called the Lord's Day Act. The ban was struck down in 1984 on constitutional grounds and the province of Ontario has made no attempt to reintroduce the ban. It is the position of the department, that given the amount of long distance hauling in the north, a Sunday or a weekend restriction on truck traffic would be very disruptive in the scheduling of deliveries. At this time, from the work we have done, there is no jurisdiction in Canada that restricts this. The road system is slightly different, I suspect, in most of the provinces because it is hard-topped. I suspect the difficulties which are encountered in our highways are significantly different than the QEW in Ontario or the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia. However, there is no legislation as such that would restrict or ban major transportation.

Mr. Gargan.

One of the other difficulties which we have in the north is with regard to the width of our highways. I think most of the highways are 16 feet wide. They are not wide, but we still allow wide vehicles on our system. Flashing lights are required on any vehicle which is six feet wide. In other jurisdictions, if the vehicle is too wide, to a certain footage, it is not allowed on the highway system. Why do we allow this to

happen in the north when our roads are much narrower than in southern jurisdictions?

Mr. Todd.

The long-term objective of the department is to bring the width and standard of the roads up to the national safety code. We were an active participant in that over the last four or five years. Now we have taken over the full jurisdiction for looking after that. I am told, where there are extraordinary circumstances, such as large trucks with extraordinary size loads, permission is given for these loads to travel on our roads under certain restrictions. For example, with some kind of escort, et cetera. In an ideal world, we would have the kinds of roads we need or we would acquire the quality of roads we would need. However, that is not the case at the present time. In looking at some of the road works that have been going on in the past, and what looks like what is going to go on in the future, those kinds of concerns that you raised with respect to width and bends, et cetera, are all being looked at. Every effort is being made by the department, particularly in engineering, to bring the highways up to grade and to meet the kind of standards so there will be a limited amount of restrictions with respect to trucking.

Thank you. Are there any general comments? Mr. Whitford.

Thank you. General comments. Mr. Minister.

If I may, I would like to have the opportunity to respond to Mr. Whitford's concerns. With respect to, as Mr. Gargan pointed out earlier, the size of vehicles and vehicles being overweight, it is important to the overweight and oversize vehicles on the highway we try to do that under restricted conditions, if they cannot make the trucks smaller based upon the load. If these conditions are not being met, then perhaps we need more highway patrols, not less. That is something we will have to take a look at.

With respect to inspections, I wish to assure Mr. Whitford that there will be no reductions in the inspections that are currently taking place. In fact, if the traffic increases, we have to look at increasing inspections.

It is important to point out that over 25 per cent of traffic on the highways is big truck traffic. I am told that 5.4 per cent of the accidents are big truck traffic. So, that is an important statistic.

I am not a road expert. I have lived in the eastern Arctic for the past 27 years and the only roads we have are usually three-wheel Honda roads. With respect to water on the roads, it is my understanding that technically that has to be done when they are doing the blading or the grading of the highways. I am told the engineers say we have to soak the surface of the road.

The last point which Mr. Whitford brought up is with respect to the scenic value of building highways. In an ideal world, we would all like to do that. However, I would like to point out that we have roughly $19 million per year to build roads. It costs somewhere in the region of $600,000 per kilometre in the Yellowknife area to build a road, and about $250,000 to $300,000 in the Fort Smith area. So, there are some limitations and the whole approach to highways is what is the most cost-effective way we can do them. We have severe limitations in terms of the capital expenditures. That is a fact, that is not fiction. Every effort is made and I understand it has been done in the past. I have not travelled the highway since 1968, but I intend to do it this summer. I understand that it has been done in the past and we will certainly make every effort in the future, but within the confines of the financial situation which we are in. Thank you.

Thank you. General comments, Mr. Whitford.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Again, I do not want to be too defensive, but the reality is you have 22,000 kilometres of road in the Northwest Territories. I am told the replacement value would be $1 billion and I have $19 million. There is a limitation to what we can do, that is all I am trying to say. As I said in my opening remarks yesterday, we are going to try to endeavour to do the best we can with the limited resources we have. Yes, we should be looking at what the cost is. It is no different than looking at a building, what is the cost of renovating a house versus building a new one? If there is a situation where it is cheaper or more cost-effective to build new roads, that is what we would do. The bottom line is, and as everyone is well aware, it costs an enormous amount of money to build one kilometre whether it is in the Yellowknife shield or in the Fort Smith area. We are severely restricted by the amount of capital dollars that we currently have in place.

As I stated in my opening remarks, it is certainly my intention to bring the NWT transportation strategy up to 1993 conditions and, hopefully, develop it as a negotiating package for discussions with the federal government. If there is any chance of an opportunity to negotiate a common approach to the building of roads with a joint initiative between federal and territorial funding, if that was to come about, that would make a significant difference to what we could accomplish.