Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for MACA. In light of the large snowfall and the problems we have had with spring runoff and the wet spring season, we are encountering a lot of problems caused by water. We have seen in the media the Bluefish Creek washout, and we have also heard that the Kakisa access roads are having extreme problems.

I just received a call from the mayor and the SAO of Fort Providence yesterday. The mayor talked to me and they are experiencing some severe problems with road conditions in the community. We have had problems with roads in the communities before. However, at this point, we do not have any gravel. Our gravel stockpile has been depleted for a couple of years now. We have not been able, even though a request has been put in, to put it on the capital plan. We do not have an engineer. We do not have the extraordinary funding we need to build and deal with the roads. To top it off, we do not have the superintendent in the region.

I would like to ask the Minister, can he tell us if there is any funding out there that Fort Providence could tap into to help them get the resources to adequately deal with the roads problem? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in reviewing my briefing notes, I see that Fort Providence was discussing this issue with the regional superintendent as late as March 28th. At that time, it was agreed that the hamlet would develop a proposal and submit it to MACA for funding for gravel. To date, the hamlet has not submitted the request for a technical assessment of their need.

However, I did discuss this with the Member yesterday and it appears that there is a little more need for it now than there was in March, due to the spring runoff conditions.

Public Works has also advised me that they were planning to go into the community in the week of the 17th to assess what gravel sources there are in the community and put together a gravel haul with the community.

There is some funding available. What we need now is an assessment from the community and a request from the community identifying exactly how much they need. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to hear that MACA and Public Works and Services have been attempting to address this problem. However, I am not sure if we are talking about the same problem. I know the community has been talking and made application, or has been requesting to put the gravel stockpile issue into the capital plans. However, the problem has escalated now because the roads have been deteriorating over the last couple of weeks. There is no gravel. There are no engineers. There is no money to hire engineers.

The problem has escalated considerably. I would like to ask the Minister, would he consider sending his staff into the community to talk about the whole problem with the roads and gravel? It is all one issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the suggestions from the Member and I will have MACA accompany Public Works next week and meet with the community on their needs. If necessary, we could do a preliminary discussion on this over the phone, but there will definitely be somebody from MACA going to the community.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for North Slave, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Transportation, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this time of year, as Mr. Lafferty points out, it is very difficult to do maintenance work and keep up with the problems we have on our roads as the frost comes out and soft spots develop and wash board and so on.

Right now, we are using all of the resources that we have in this area as efficiently as we can. They work some days primarily on Highway No. 3 and some days on other areas, but we are using the full resources we have. There are none that are sitting idle for no reason.

I will check with the department. If there are other areas where we could move equipment or people into this area, then on a temporary basis, we will do that. I know the roads are in bad condition, both Highway No. 3 and Highway No. 4, and it is the same with parts of Highway No. 1. It seems to be a problem everywhere.

I am not optimistic we have resources we can reallocate to this region. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Transportation, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess to answer the question I would have to know more specific information about what the Member is proposing, but we do use contractors. If there is a way of doing that within the resources we have, certainly we would consider it. I will discuss it further with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Transportation, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am open to doing whatever we can to improve the efficiency of our road repair and maintenance operation. If there were things that were done in the past that we could take a look at, then I would be pleased to do that. We all want the roads in as good a condition and as safe as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Transportation, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, as long as the correspondence does not indicate that it is confidential, then I certainly would be willing to share it. Thank you.