Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the question of priorities and how the department arrives at priorities for different roads was raised last week. I responded we do not set priorities for maintenance of highways based on anything but to bring the highway up to safety standards, and to assure the highways are passable and safe.

From that point on, priorities for maintenance depends mainly on the amount of traffic flow, plus the weather conditions as to what is required to keep those parts of the highway passable. We do not have a priority rating, such as one, two, three, four or five as to different aspects of the highway system we have. We simply do it based on the maintenance schedules we have established to keep highways safe and passable. Thank you.