Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, like my honourable colleagues from the Umingmaktuuq region, eastern Arctic, my concern, the concern of the people that I represent, is in the area of airports. In this case, air travel, Mr. Chairman, within the past ten years we have come a long way. We have modern airports in our community. We have terminal buildings. We have non-directional and directional beacons in the community. We have come a long way since 30 years ago.

One of the main concerns of the travelling public in the eastern Arctic, I presume I speak for them, I am not from that area. At the same time, this is a concern coming from my area. In some cases, we do not have the luxury to travel by the land and, in this case, we do not have highways, we do not have the luxury of travelling by vehicle to the next major hospital, when a medical emergency is at hand. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate, and most people will, the fact that the government has given the communities some support in maintaining their airports. In fact, our airports are now classified, recognized by the Ministry of Transportation and they were constructed to the specifications of the ministry of this country. As one of the renowned scientists, Mr. Murphy once said, "what can go wrong, will eventually go wrong". There may be times when the medium-sized aircraft is within a vicinity of the airport and has to have an emergency landing within that vicinity. In some cases, our airport runways are not long enough to accommodate or facilitate aircraft that are in emergency situations. There are times across the territories we hear equipment burned down, buildings burned down.

In the eastern Arctic we depend highly, if not solely, on air travel. What happens in the community of Taloyoak, in the event that a vehicle or equipment used to maintain the runway is burned down? What happens in the event that the equipment that is used to service a community, in this case a water truck, maybe a sewage truck burned down? What happens if the garage burns down that is there to house all the essential equipment used for community service? There would be nothing left.

I think we have to plan. We have to be prepared for the worst case scenario. In Taloyoak, we have a runway and it was built to specifications of the Arctic airports. In this case, subsequent to Ministry of Transport Canada, it is not long enough to facilitate a medium-sized aircraft. When I talk about a medium-sized aircraft I could be talking about 747s Taloyoak that is able to land in Taloyoak.

About the same time, we have lear jets. There are times when we have emergency cases in the community. Someone is sick and we do not have the luxury, as I indicated earlier, of having to travel by road to go to a hospital, obviously equipped with all the necessary equipment to deliver in emergencies. So, Mr. Chairman, we have to understand that in this day and age, we should have the ability in the eastern Arctic, especially when we do not have the luxury of road travel, we do not have medical centres with all the necessary equipment to take on the emergency situation, and in some cases, we do not even have a practical, long enough runway to facilitate emergency situations. This is the case in Taloyoak. People in Taloyoak have approached me many times. This is still an issue. The people of Taloyoak, the mayor, SCO, on some occasion have had the opportunity to meet with the Minister. Mr. Chairman, in this day and age, we have instrument landing systems in some airports, some communities with instrument landing systems, and have the luxury of having a road to travel to medical centres. We have to realize for public safety, Mr. Chairman, to maintain the necessity of air travel in the Nunavut area, eastern Arctic. We have to try to be sensitive,

be understanding and try and accommodate those communities that need these facilities. In other areas, as the western Arctic, there are means to travel around. We have roads around here, we have highways and we have different types of aircraft, but in the eastern Arctic we do not have that. You are lucky if you have two different airline companies travelling on schedule to your community.

In my region we only have one that is on schedule. We do have a chartered airline in Cambridge Bay. I am thankful for that. I want to express my appreciation, but there are times when the community is short supplied. When commodities and other essentials are unavailable in the winter time, the only way to get those things is by air travel, but the airports, in some cases are not long enough to facilitate them. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for allowing me to express my concern. At the appropriate time I will be asking questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my comments are primarily concerning the highway between Yellowknife and Fort Providence and the Ingraham Trail. Because of the BHP diamond mine and the other mining activities up north, we are beginning to have a lot of big trucks travelling on those roads. Now, I understand that there is going to be a study done to see what is the best avenue to take for improving that road between Yellowknife and Fort Rae. Last year, I believe there was $600,000 in that neighbourhood and perhaps more, that was not used somewhere around Providence because the road had not deteriorated as quickly as was originally thought. That $600,000 wound up being used in another jurisdiction or constituency, I guess. It was not used for the same road.

Mr. Chairman, I think that money could have went to financing that study and we would not have had to wait for another year. We could have had that study being worked on right now. We have heard complaints from Mr. Rabesca on the traffic on the road between here and Rae and I travelled on that road two weekends ago and the traffic by the big trucks is quite heavy. I have never experienced that many vehicles on that road and I have lived here all my life. They have slowed down, but now it takes an hour and a half to get from here to Fort Rae.

Mr. Chairman, we all want a solution, but we do not want to increase our travelling time by an extra 50 percent. I think the sooner we can get the road straightened out a little bit and widened, the better off we are, therefore, I am dismayed that the money that was not needed for that Highway 3 was not used for that study. Similarly, Mr. Chairman, those large trucks that were carrying large loads have to continue up on the Ingraham Trail once they pass Yellowknife. That road is in worse shape than between Fort Rae and Yellowknife. I know that the speed limit is now at 70 kilometres per hour. That is a sufficient speed. The problem is keeping those big vehicles to stay on their side of the road.

Mr. Chairman, the name of that road is Ingraham Trail. That is what it is. It is a trail, not a highway. It was not made for that type of traffic. That road has to be widened as well and I believe that this government has to find a way to widen that road because if we do not do that, I am afraid someone is going to be severely injured or perhaps even killed sometime in the future.

We have trucks that are going through there approximately every 15 minutes or so, or maybe even less time in between. It is just not safe for residents of the trail. At one time I had questioned the Premier on the possibility of re-introducing the vision, the "road to riches" that Prime Minister Diefenbaker had instituted many years ago during his tenure as the Prime Minister of Canada. Unfortunately, that road was when the Ingraham Trail started and it petered out after Mr. Diefenbaker's government lost the following election. The Premier had indicated that he would be willing to look at the possibility of a partnership between the federal government, territorial government and industry and whomever else that is interested, so that they can continue on that road and widen Ingraham Trail. I would be interested in hearing from the Minister on this particular subject when he has a chance to speak. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will keep my comments brief. They are along the same lines and much of the area has been covered by my colleague, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Chairman, this government has spoken a number of times about initiatives to create employment in the territories. It goes in hand with helping with the social problems. The more work and more jobs we can create in the territories, the less strain that will be created on our social programs. There are initiatives just north of Yellowknife, particularly, the BHP and Diavik projects that have the potential to create large amounts of jobs for northern people. The only means of transportation we have is Highway 3 to get the products and building components to the jobsite. I was very disappointed last year that funds for the upgrade of Highway 3 were removed from the budget. Here is a project that, in the long run, will help to create employment opportunities for northerners, and having that access in the best possible condition for the traffic that will be travelling that road to get both of these projects on stream and other ones that will come. I certainly have to question the building of access roads as compared to initiatives such as this, that is going to be creating employment in the north. I have to question the wisdom that goes into building these access roads. I have little or no doubt that communities get benefits from these access roads. The best explanation I have had to date that it is better access to hunting and fishing. That is all well and good but I think we have to accept the fact that we are in a wage economy and, if there are dollars that can be spent that will create employment and create taxes for the government, I think we have to look in the short term as to where they are best spent. If we can get better products and services to situations or locations that will create employment in the short term and long term employment, I think the department should be looking at those initiatives, initially. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. I will try to make it very brief, so we can get into details. I think a lot of these areas could be covered in detail. Let us go down the line here just generally on deferring of different projects, I think there were some specific requests made by some of the Members. On the budget reduction, we looked at deferring projects one or two years. We bumped them back. This is done through analysis by the department. For example, if an airport terminal exists in a community, and it still has maybe two or three years life in it, then there is no need to replace it immediately. Then analysis is done and we move it back. In some cases, there are some reasons for delay, besides deferring. There is the possibility the project is preliminary to the actual airport terminal building and needs to be in place before we actually need to do it. That would cause some delay. I will just leave it general at that and, once we get into the airport terminal buildings and some other questions on deferral, in regards to Clyde River and Broughton Island, we will get into it at that time.

In regards to the department in general, the department was gearing up for amalgamation, but now that it is no longer going to happen, we now have to reevaluate our department. For example, we had a lot of casuals on staff and we never filled any permanent positions because of that. Now we are going to seriously start looking at filling those permanent positions. I think the people who are in place are reassured that we are going to function as the Department of Transportation and that we are going to move ahead with our priorities. Generally, the message is clear to the staff that there will be a period of consistency.

In regards to the access road, I think there are a number of people who mentioned it. I just want to say that it is a very popular program in the smaller communities. As long as they do not start heading for the first river or creek, I think we will be okay. Then we will have to start thinking about bridges. Just a general comment on the access road. It is a very popular program. It provides an opportunity for communities that are still practising their traditional lifestyles of putting food on the table by hunting and fishing. It is a compliment to the wage economy. In a lot of communities, that is the way people generally put food on the table. Based on that, I think it is a good program. These are the programs that are given directly to the communities and the communities, like municipalities, do the work themselves, so they make a dollar go further rather than using that term instead of the other one, that you get more out of your dollar than the other way.

In regards to air travel and the length of airport runways, that is an ongoing problem that we have in this department. In this time of budget restraints, we are going to have to look at each case in relation to all the other requests that are there. If there is a real need or safety reason, we will look at that. For the time being, we are in a state where we are going through budget restraints and we have major cutbacks in this department. Therefore, we have to note it and say that we realize that this is a request and leave it at that. For the highway to Providence and here, there is a price whenever there is something good happening and, in some cases for business, the economy and for jobs in Yellowknife and this region, with the mining development and the diamonds, the future looks good for business and the economy here. At the same time, there is a price that you have to pay for that. In this particular case, all along and for years, I have known that the infrastructure of a country is a main driving force to developing the economy. In this case, the highway is a major infrastructure that we have in this part of the Northwest Territories and we have to make good use of it. We have to look at the resources that we have and then try to make the best use of the dollars in trying to develop that infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the cost that we are looking at to finish off the highway between here and Rae is a major one. At the same time, it is the roads to riches that honourable Member Erasmus made reference to. We call it road to resources. That is an idea, putting a highway into the Slave geological province, where there are a lot of minerals, and maybe even finishing off a road up into Coronation Gulf. That is one of the ideas that have been thrown out.

Of course, there is the finishing off of the highway down the Mackenzie Valley connecting from Wrigley on through Norman Wells and connecting to the Dempster Highway, close to Arctic Red or close to Inuvik, and finishing off the highway from Inuvik to Tuk.

These are the different scenarios that are out there and we have been developing a plan over the past few months with the department and trying to look at ways on how to be a catalyst in trying to bring the GNWT, the federal government, industry, the different aboriginal First Nations' organizations and their development corporations - trying to get all the different stakeholders out there who are eventually going to benefit from this type of venture, trying to get them together. We have been working on different plans and different scenarios and what Mr. Erasmus and Mr. Henry have alluded to, of developing a plan. We have not just been sitting here on our hands doing nothing about a plan. There are people actively engaged in looking at what the possibilities are out there, in trying to secure enough resources to do some of this type of major infrastructure development.

The creation of employment is a key factor as well and in communities that are traditional and that still practice a traditional lifestyle, there is no wage economy. They have to learn how to put food on the table. Again, the access road is one avenue that is there that provides employment to the community and also opens up the country for the people in these communities.

Again, I just wanted to say that this department has taken quite a drastic cut this year and last year and we are still going to be able to provide the programs and services that are there. But hopefully we will be able to do that without any major changes to the way we have been doing programs and services in this department.

I just wanted to make those general comments in response to some of the general comments that were made. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. We are through with general comments and we are now on page 10-10, corporate services. Operations and maintenance, total operations and maintenance, $7,970,000. Agreed?

Agreed.

Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the business plan that we have here, we feel we have enough resources and enough people within the department to carry out the work that is required. As you know, we have taken quite a substantial cut in the amount of contracts that are going to be out there. The capital has been cut back substantially and, as a result, there will be less work in the sense that we will not be doing as much as we were in the past. Based on that, I think that we should be able to carry out the work that is ahead of us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated earlier, there were actually six people who we feel are going to be affected negatively in that whole process and, I think that, with that many people being affected negatively, I do not think it will cause that significant a difference to the way that we carry out the work in this department. These PY cuts were basically to try to streamline the operation of the department and at the same time try to meet the budget reduction that we are targeted with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you. Corporate services. Mr. Krutko.