Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In terms of added enforcement to maintain the controls and motor vehicle rules of the road in the Providence area, we currently administer or cover that area by enforcement officers, an enforcement office that works out of Yellowknife and then our patrols that work out of the Enterprise site and Hay River. The challenge we have is that it is many kilometres of highway, and the traffic volumes at certain times of the day are not very high. The speed issue on Highway No. 3 was addressed in this Assembly last summer, and amendments were made to the Motor Vehicles Act and the Public Highways Act, to reflect those changes. The highway is now posted at 100 kilometres an hour. The problem is people often do not abide by the posted speed. We have had many occasions, as the Member indicated, of bison hits on the Highway No. 3 section.
That has been a challenge for us. We do not believe that added enforcement during various times of day is going change that incident as much as we hope. We have a challenge here as well, in terms of resources and the number of positions we have available to dispatch from our motor vehicles branch. We have also taken the measure to encourage the RCMP to step up their patrols. It is a responsibility of the RCMP as well to patrol the highway system. We have asked them to pursue further enforcement of the Motor Vehicles Act on the highways as well, and will continue to do so, as well as deploying a staff that we currently have to where they are most needed. Obviously, the incident in Fort Providence clearly points to some stepped up enforcement needed by our patrols out of the Enterprise area. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.