Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had four things that I wanted to say and I was thinking that I could do it in the first 10 minutes, but this is my third time trying here. The last thing that I wanted to talk to the Minister about has to do with the Yellowknife airport authority and I found that I made a note of the fact that he did not mention it in the opening statement. There was no mention of it there. I am not sure if I have put this on record, but when I first heard of this concept I was intrigued by the idea and I think it is an issue that we should address our mind to. I think there could be lots of reasons for that and the Minister had indicated already very well about why we need to study this. It is the present and the future circumstances that we find ourselves into and we are aware of where the Northwest Territories and Yellowknife are located in terms of trans-Atlantic air traffic. With the end of the Cold War with there being a lot more freedom in the areas that planes from different countries could fly, we are really located now at the heart of air traffic. Any way we can look into to find how we can capitalize on that and make the Territories or Yellowknife or wherever the surrounding areas to become a player, I think we should look into that. I envision Yellowknife as being a major player in that and we have to get ready for that. At least to look at possibilities of it.

With the diamond industry in the North we are getting more connected to European countries in a way that we never were before and we have Europeans moving here and living here. Our Ministers travel to Europe more often maybe. So, there is a potential for tourism there. We could see a day when we could have a direct flight to Europe.

Also, every time I go out to the airport I see so many visitors from Japan and I would love to see a day when they could travel directly to Yellowknife from Asian countries and not have to go through Vancouver and Edmonton. With the time difference and the hours that they have to travel, the more they have to go through different flight changes the more need they have for interpreters and so on. So, I see so much potential for this. When I heard of the first forum a couple years back I went to it and I thought there were a lot of people out there too. So obviously this is an area of interest to everyone. Well, a lot of people in town.

I guess the wrinkle that puts into this is, we do not know what is going to happen with the security questions that are being raised post-9/11. I do not know if it is positive or negative, but also with the changes that are being implemented in the United States as to air travel I am not sure if there will be a decrease in the traffic going to the United States. These are all these fluctuating circumstances that we find ourselves under, but I think that is more of the reasons for getting ready for it and exploring what we can do and whether or not we should consider different ways of doing things at the Yellowknife airport.

Having said that, I support this in principle. I think that it is the kind of thing that we should be progressive about. Of course, I think what we could do better and the department could do better if we extend and widen the buy-in. Obviously whenever there is a change in governance structure, it does raise the concerns of employees and Mr. Bell addressed that concern very well. I would encourage the Minister to do everything he can to ease any concerns there as much as possible and work with the union. This is to address the concerns of the employees because without their support everything will become impossible. I am sorry, I understand that there is nothing there, this is just in the concept stage and it is just a step-by-step. We have to do a good job in making sure that everybody is informed about what is happening.

Another thing that was brought up to me in my constituency meeting at Tim Horton's, and this is sort of the underlying skepticism and question that is being raised by the public is whether or not this is an off-loading exercise. That the Government of the Northwest Territories is not able to perhaps where we do not have enough money for Yellowknife airport or something and this is being looked into as a possible way to off-load this responsibility. I think this speaks to the need for good information out there and having people understand why this is being done. I need to indicate that to the Minister. So, I am just wondering in that area, what is the game plan for the department in this area? Is the department just being a facilitator, a conduit for this exercise or does the department have a position in this area on this topic? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, as I said in my opening comments, I said we are continuing to develop an airport investment strategy that will lay out the improvements that we need over the next 20 years. I also acknowledge the commercial opportunities that exist there for us. So, we do not have any particular game plan in mind that we want to achieve an objective other than to maximize the potential that is here for all of us. I do not have a preference in terms of the governance model. I know there are stakeholders out there, airline operators at all our airports, who do not want to see any costs off-loaded onto them because their businesses may be struggling as it is.

What we want to do here, and I know when we do it as a government it does make people nervous, we want to take a look at the long-term opportunities. I will meet with the employees, UNW. We would work it out with the UNW president to give everybody assurances that before any changes are made that we want to make sure that everyone's needs are considered.

This is not an off-loading. I know it makes people nervous that somewhere we are going to off-load the costs onto them. That is not the intention. In fact, I have said in answering questions last week that we are committed, if we do make changes, to keeping at least the same level of advancement that we currently in the airport operation in Yellowknife. We are not going to decrease that. So we are not intending to pull-out and somehow put those costs onto someone else.

There is a lot of potential. There is also a lot of need. If we are going to have international passengers coming to the territories, we need to probably have a 10,000 foot strip. It means extending what we have, ours is only about 8,500 feet. Now we have to build a 10,000 foot strip. Our airport terminal is too small and too congested right now. Same with the ramp space and so on. So there are some big investments that have to be made if we are going to get into the international airport league.

So, we want to look at these things. We are looking at them over the longer term. I do not have any conclusions that I want the panel to come to. We have given them a fair bit of latitude to do what they feel is best. They are going to report back to us in May and I will be happy to share the report with the Members and discuss it from there. This is clearly just aimed at trying to take advantage of opportunities that are before us right now, not to in any way off-load anything or take away benefits of employees or airline operators or anyone else. So I am open-minded on it. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that message has to be put out there clearly that government intends to keep on investing the budget and the money that they have in the books, it is just that we need to pursue other means of partnerships or other ways of governing to maximize the potential at that airport.

In that same area, I have a question about the task team or the panel. I was not aware when I went to the latest workshop the degree to which this project had advanced. Because last time, I guess the workshop was supposed to be in December and the task team was in and I was not aware of it at all. I am just wondering if the Minister can say how did he come up with the members of that task team? Was there consultation on who was going to sit on that task team and how did he go about choosing those members? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, in terms of the panel itself, since the first meeting in December 2001, and we have been doing some background work on this, in selecting a panel there was extensive consultation with the Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce, the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, Northern Air Transport Association and with other stakeholders there. So we tried to get as broad a spectrum as possible. Following the original membership the Chamber of Mines asked to have a position or our panel suggested we have someone from the Chamber of Mines and we have since done that. The tourism association has been involved as well. So we did a lot of consultations with all of the stakeholders and the people who benefit from the airport. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, whenever we do something new, like changing the route of a winter road or putting a bridge across the river, then we want to make sure that we have the support of the community that is impacted by it. With the bridge there is a process and we want to make sure everybody is involved. In that case, the band council and the mayor and council and the Metis Association were all very involved. In the case of the winter roads, the reason for the BCR was because we were asking to change the route of the winter road that would affect the communities who were serviced by that winter road. So, we ask that you make sure that they agreed with this.

We also have had, as I recall, some previous letters, at least, I do not remember if they were BCRs, from the chiefs in some of the communities saying they did not want to have an all-weather road through there. The commitment we made is that if we could get BCRs from the communities we would change the route and use the old Lac la Martre route if that is what the communities wanted us to do.

With regard to building an all-weather road in that area, the offer that was made by the previous Minister of Transportation was, if there was an agreement for an all-weather road we would work with the chief and councils of the representative communities in that area to put forward a proposal to the federal government. That offer still stands. We are prepared to do that. We do not ask this for on-going improvements to existing infrastructure. It is only where we are making a major change to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is right. He has given me quite a stack of correspondence and BCRs and so on from years ago. In some cases some of it is very old, some of it is more recent. But all we need, if you want to change the alignment for the road going on the old Lac la Martre road then we just need to know that the communities want that. I do not think it is terribly onerous, but the impact is huge if we change it. It may have a big impact on some communities. So, we just want to have that assurance.

On the all-weather road we are prepared to work with a committee and we will put a steering committee together to put together a proposal for the federal government for an all-weather road in that area. So, Mr. Chairman, unless I am going to rely on some BCRs, I forget the dates on some of them, but some of them are quite old. I think times are different, things are different now. Let us get some of those, if not a BCR at least a letter or something from the band councils indicating they want it and get on with business. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I think the first thing we need to do is have the leaders in the communities agree that they want to form a steering committee. If they put together a steering committee, then we have the resources within our department to help put together a proposal for the federal government. If, as we move along, we find that it makes sense to make some investment, I am not sure it is $250,000 or what it would be, but that is not out of the question. We will put in whatever makes sense, but it has to make good economic sense. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. The Chair recognizes Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, pretty well all of the emergency training is done through the lead of EMO and that is within the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, not in Department of Transportation. I am sure our government will make known to people that if there are courses that are being offered that they could benefit from. It is something that I am certainly prepared to talk to Mr. Steen about because it fits more into his department than mine. I do not deal with the emergency situations in terms of training people and paying the cost of that. That is why we have the EMO. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Mr. Nitah.