Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a return to an oral question asked by Mr. Leon Lafferty on June 20, 2000, regarding the maintenance of territorial highways.

The Member's question tried to make a connection between the department's maintenance expenditures by highway and its maintenance priorities. There is no simple or direct connection between the two.

As the Minister of Transportation, I am responsible for setting the department's maintenance priorities. My general direction to the department is that all public highways in the Northwest Territories, all-weather or seasonal, should be maintained to keep them safely passable for the travelling public at all times.

On a practical, day-to-day basis, the department's regional superintendents and highway foremen decide how they will keep the highways in their areas safely passable. The amount and kind of maintenance work required will depend on their judgements according to the type of highway surface, geography, local weather conditions and traffic characteristics.

Maintenance costs vary tremendously across the Territory. Highways built on stable, well-drained ground are less expensive to maintain than highways built over swampy muskeg. The cost of highway resurfacing depends on whether locally available gravel sources are scarce or abundant. Snow removal is more expensive in areas that get more snow. Heavily travelled roads need more attention than lightly travelled roads. Maintenance costs vary from region to region and highway to highway, not because the department's priorities change, but because these factors change.

The Department of Transportation's maintenance expenditures by highway give no indication of its maintenance priority. The priority to keep the territorial highway system safely passable is the same everywhere. Achieving that priority does cost more for one highway than another but all our highways have the same priority. They are to remain safely passable. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.