Thank you and good morning, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to talk a bit about infrastructure, specifically to the highways in the South Slave area. I would like to focus on some of the discussion that has been going on of late, particularly that started by my colleague for North Slave, Mr. Leon Lafferty. I congratulate Mr. Lafferty for fighting his corner on behalf of his constituents in his arguments and his very persuasive discussion to look at the road network extending into the North Slave region. He is fighting on behalf of his constituents and I respect and admire that.
Sometimes, though, the arguments have been made that those kinds of projects should be done perhaps at the exclusion of another piece of road that is pretty important around here, and that is the Ingraham Trail. This is an important piece of road not only for residents of the community who live there but it is also one of the busiest highways in the NWT for recreational purposes. Ten thousand tourists a year rely on that road to take them out to the Aurora Adventure. It is the supply lifeline for the diamond mines in the region, so it is an important piece of road.
As anyone who has driven it lately can attest, it too is in pretty rough shape. I would like to relate a bit of a story that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. My daughter and I were returning from our cottage on Prosperous Lake and we were tailed for a couple of miles by an RCMP cruiser. Finally the lights went on and he pulled me over. The officer was very professional and very polite. After going through the formalities, he said "Well, Mr. Braden, the reason we pulled you over was that we did not know whether you were drunk or whether you were just dodging all the potholes."
I wanted to offer that as an illustration of just what condition that road is in.
-- Interjection
-- Laughter
I assured the officer I was quite in control and quite sober. I wanted to just give you that story, Mr. Speaker, as an illustration of the kinds of conditions we are facing here too. I would like to ask for unanimous consent to conclude my statement.