Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister has indicated in his opening comments that the Highway Investment Strategy in his budget was developed in response to the number of requests from different Members of this House. When I was made aware that there was a strategy being developed for highways, I felt very confident that some of the communities that I represent would be included as part of the strategy.

After hearing the Minister indicate during question period that his only methodology for selecting roads for repair or for upgrade was based on safety and visibility, I was very convinced that the communities of Kakisa and Hay River Reserve would be receiving upgrades as these roads are narrow, winding and dusty and they have never had very significant upgrades over the last number of years.

I was very surprised when this budget and strategy came out that there were no funds indicated for the Deh Cho, but there were funds there for the paving of certain roads. There were funds for the Ingraham Trail, a road that does not lead to any specific community, and I would not consider taking priority over communities that had a safety factor.

This leaves me questioning the Minister because in his comments over the last year, he has stated several positions that I do not agree with, or he has had a change of heart. Initially, he indicated that Highway No. 3 would not be escalated, even though there were a number of requests put forward. He indicated that he could not escalate this project because the North did not have the capacity to have contractors take on contracts of this nature and this size, so they had to keep it at the level of investment that was indicated previously.

Now he is saying that there is a capacity in the North to do this and we can escalate it. That it is a complete change from Hansard of not even a year ago. I wonder how accurate the information that he is using to determine the priorities for this strategy is.

In his statement on July 7th he indicated, when he referenced the Hay River access road, that there was only two injuries, two accidents, no fatalities. That is not true. Over the last ten years, there have been 15 accidents on that road. I wonder if the Minister had taken that into consideration. This is information that his own department provided to me.

When we look at the other statistics, there is a disclaimer on all of the information the department puts out, stating that only 46 percent of the information collected is usable. That really does not give me confidence that we are using the information collected to the best of our ability because we are not getting the total picture. I hear the bureaucrats from his department making comments about the highway traffic levels being low. His own statistics show that the traffic has increased over the last while. I really have a lot of questions regarding the accuracy of his information.

With regard to the introduction of tolls, I have a lot of questions. I have been working with our research department to see if there is indeed a clawback clause and whether it applies to tolls.

We have also heard the Minister of Finance being questioned. I think everybody is fairly confident that over the next three years until a new formula financing agreement is renegotiated, we will not see a clawback. However, there is no reassurance and he did not give us one, and the research that I have looked at does not indicate that it applies or does not apply. I have a number of questions.

When it comes down to a long-term investment and taking on a $100 million debt, it really bothers me because the revenues from the introduction of a toll can only be spent in the area of existing projects, as far as I understand. If that is the case, then it certainly leaves us out in the Deh Cho because there is no investment indicated in the strategy, and there is no room for new investment.

In the community of Fort Providence, we have been working quite hard to research the whole aspect of designing and building a bridge. This does not even take that into consideration, nor does it take into consideration the road to resources which, we were told, does not exist, but there is a road for the Great Slave Geological Province indicated. Is that the same thing or is that two different projects? I do not know.

My main concern though in this whole thing with the introduction of tolls, and we have already seen the discussion with the hotel tax, that we are shifting from what we initially started out as trying to renegotiate and opening the door for discussion for the federal government and the submission for the non-renewable strategy. I thought it was something I could live with. Now we have gone away from that and we are looking at introducing new taxes and tolls and that will increase the cost of living in the Territories. As it stands right now, I do not think I can support that initiative unless there are some major changes. I would like to see us maintain pressure on the federal government and open up those discussions rather than the introduction of new taxes and tolls.

So my question is regarding the accuracy of his information, where is he getting his information from? Information that I am looking at from his department certainly does not reflect what he has based his priorities on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if I could respond to the Member as he brought the issues up, the access road improvement on the Hay River Reserve. The Member is correct in that the department in the past has indicated that with the capital funding we had at that time, and because the traffic volume on that reserve road was low, we had a low priority for improvements on that road comparable with the rest of the highways in the Territories, taking into consideration the traffic volumes. However, if this proposal that we have put forward to increase capital expenditures and the option of toll charging as a revenue source, if this comes into play, it takes some pressure off of our other capital expenditures.

Although we have identified these capital expenditures in our five-year capital plan, there is the flexibility that with this new revenue, we could see ourselves moving up improvements on the Hay River Reserve. We could do that at an earlier date. I could commit the department will look at what is involved in improving that road. The Members have continuously mentioned it even in the past government. So I could commit to the department doing the engineering aspect of this and looking to see what it needs on this road.

I can also respond to the Member's concern that last year we were saying that contractors did not have the capability to respond to our tenders. In fact, what we were getting indications of at that time, there were no other activities going on in the Territories and our contractors were down to the limits. We were competing with the mines. To some degree, we are still doing that, but the difference is we are suggesting to the contractors that this is not just a one-time thing. This is an ongoing thing where they can do some investing of their own and expand their operation to allow them to be able to put in tenders.

There is also the option of partnerships. There are different options now that were not there before. As far as we are concerned, we are getting indications from the contractors now that they are capable of taking on this work and that is good, because it will help the local economy. It is our intent to try to spread this work locally.

As far as the Providence bridge project, the department is not in any competition with the community to put this bridge up. If the community does find a source of funding other than what we have through Indian Affairs or whoever, and they have a viable toll program that can set the bridge up, we are not interfering. As a matter of fact, we would be open to see how the proposal and how we could involve it in our highway infrastructure, because it would become part of our highway. At this point in time, through the highway investment program that we are talking about here, we are looking at this bridge project being moved up. The capability of taking it on in five years rather than 20 years is there if we can have this project go ahead.

Before that, we could not even look at it. We just did not have the capacity to do it with the funding we have. We should take into consideration that even with revenue sharing, it may be a while before we have the capability of taking on a large project like this bridge.

The last concern the Member expressed is my source of information for his road. I do not argue that he is getting his information from his researcher from the same department that I get it from. What we found is that the RCMP, when they make their reports, sometimes they refer to it as an access road, sometimes they refer to it as the village road. So in fact, there were 14 accidents. Some of them were right in front of people's houses, but they were still listed as being on the access road. So there were 14 accidents. There was one fatality and, Mr. Chairman, I am responding to the Member through an oral question tomorrow. So the rest of the information will be available for the Member tomorrow.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, we do not disagree that everybody will be affected by the toll, whether you are on the highway or off the highway. However, you will be affected at the rate that your commodity, whether it is fuel, whether it is dry goods, are transported on the highway system. Those communities, for instance, that get all their freight and all their fuel down the Mackenzie River will have no effect. It will all come to them the same as it did before. We do not charge for traffic on the river. If it comes by air, we are not charging them for traffic that comes by air. We are charging for commodities that are travelling on our highway system. There is no doubt that the Member's communities will be affected to some degree because some of the commodities travel on our highway system. So there will be an increase.

However, I believe that what the department did was make the government Cabinet aware of the situation. The Finance Minister has come out with a cost-of-living rebate that would offset this cost to some degree. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Steen.

Well, Mr. Chairman, this is a new one to me. I have never heard of this approach to paving the approach to the winter road. In fact, I believe this is part of the winter road that the Member is talking about. We have no plans in place at this time to pave that section of highway.

The other thing that the Member mentioned earlier was whether or not there will be a charge relative to traffic on winter roads. We have no plans at this time that the toll would apply to traffic on the winter roads. The traffic toll charge would apply to existing highway sections.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Steen.

Mr. Chairman, the overall plan for the Ingraham Trail; we are going to hardtop them up to the Detah turn off. From there on, we are going to do improvements all along, all the way to Tibbet Lake. In the four-year plan, we are talking $25 million.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Steen.

Mr. Chairman, I think our highway strategy identifies those routes that serve the mines and the heavy industry as well as those routes that serve the oil and gas industry. So we are trying to accommodate all types of traffic on our roads. In dealing with Highway No. 4, the Ingraham Trail, we must keep in mind that this particular stretch of highway is going to be producing a large portion of the toll.

As a matter of fact, the toll is aimed at most of the heavy traffic that is going down that road. It is not aimed at the recreational traffic that goes up to Prelude Lake and it is not aimed at the local traffic that goes to Detah. We are not charging those people. There are also people that live all along that route, Highway No. 4, but we are not aiming any toll charges at those people.

What we are doing is we are trying to accommodate and make the highways safe for those people that use that section of highway and that is the heavy truck traffic. It is the same truck traffic that comes down Highway No. 1 and Highway No. 3 on its way to the mines. So we really are trying to accommodate every different user of our highways. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Steen.

Mr. Chairman, I think the Member is voicing the same concerns that were expressed by other Members, and that is the security of our future tolls. All that I can do, Mr. Chairman, is respond to what figures we had for 1999. For instance, we had roughly 4,000 trucks going down to the mines and BHP, Echo Bay, Diavik, Snap Lake were the ones in operation at that time. As the Member has stated, some of them were in the exploration stage rather than the production stage, and it is true.

However, production requires more truck traffic than exploration and this is the case, in particular, while they are setting up. This year, we are talking anywhere between 7,500 to 8,000 truckloads. That is double what we had in 1999. So we feel these are very conservative figures.

If the traffic volume of 1999 is going to produce $15 million a year, the traffic volume this year will produce double that without having any of that really reflected on the local residents because their traffic did not increase. So this is one other way of looking at it. The more truck traffic there is, the quicker we reach our $100 million cost mark and the quicker the debt will be wiped out. That is the way I look at it anyway.