Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks, Ms. Cook and Mr. Neudorf, for joining us this afternoon, and our colleague, Mr. McLeod. Just some general comments.
I will start off with talking about the Ingraham Trail if I could, and that is something that I don't feel over the last four to eight years that the government has made enough of an effort on trying to put more emphasis on the fact that what is the Ingraham Trail, the 70 kilometres that goes northeast from the city of Yellowknife will in fact one day be the beginning of a road into the slave geological province. I believe that there is an expenditure here of $3 million over the next five years for a total of $15 million, but I think if the government can finally admit to it and say that this is the road that is going to head into this geological province, then that is money well spent. We should do whatever we can and I would encourage the government to do whatever it can to make the road as good as possible, because it will be the start of this all-weather road into the slave geological province. If that is not the case -- and I am from Yellowknife so I am going to say that it should be the case -- then I think we have to perhaps start looking at some alternatives to that, because I think a road into our resource area is necessary and will be necessary in the foreseeable future. So I would encourage the government to finally take a stand on this and admit to that being the start of an all-weather road into the slave geological province.
A few years back the government spent some money on fixing up the road, and it didn't really fix it up, it was more patchwork, and there wasn't a lot of engineering that went into it obviously because after the road work was completed, a few weeks later was coming apart in certain areas. I am a big believer that if you are going to spend money, you spend it and you do something right. I believe some of that money perhaps was just a quick fix, and maybe should have been put together to do it more thoroughly than it was at the time. That would be a comment on the Ingraham Trail. I'd agree that it stays in here because I am going to fight the fight that that is the beginning of the all-weather road into the slave geological province.
The next thing I wanted to talk about was the Bear River project, and I know Mr. Delorey had some questions of the Premier earlier today actually that questioned the cost of steel increasing 66 percent, and what that might do to a project like the Bear River project which is slated to cost $25 million, and if it costs 66 percent more to construct that bridge that could become quickly problematic for the government to find the funding to do that. As an aside to that, I don't know if putting a bridge over the Bear River will help lengthen the ice road season, because there are a number of stream crossings and other crossings on that route that melt at the same time. So I am not quite 100 percent convinced that this will prolong the season for that road.
Another comment I would have is on the Norman Wells airport project. I had questions when committee was looking at this with the Minister and his staff. It went from being $3.6 million one year and then to $7.7 million the next year. I had requested an explanation from the Minister and his staff on how something could cost $3.6 million one year and $7.7 million the next year. If you talk about a class B estimate versus a class C estimate, and there still is some confusion here for me that if we could have accomplished what we wanted to accomplish with $3.6 million, why is it really necessary to spend $7.7 million. If it is just because we have the money from this airports capital assistance program, then I don't know if that is the right way to do it. Just because we have the money, we are going to spend it. That is just a comment for the Minister.
The Yellowknife airport; that is an interesting topic in and of itself. The fact that the department has set out on a pretty grandiose kind of scheme for the Yellowknife airport, and it is estimated to cost upwards of $120 million in the next 10 to 15 years, and I know we have to put the new security measures in place at the current terminal building, but the current terminal building, Madam Chair, was completely renovated in the early 1990s if I am not mistaken. I know that security measures are something new, but certainly passenger levels and forecasting into the future should have been taken into consideration when the government spent millions of dollars upgrading the current facility, and if they weren't then, obviously they are now because this plan is quite something.
I know I talked about it the other day, but this access road into the Kam Lake Industrial Park and how that works into this airport expansion, I would like to see that somehow come to a conclusion so the City of Yellowknife can know whether or not that road can run through this parcel of land in the immediate future. It is something that the city desperately needs to see happen.
Onto the repatriation of the licensing function. I know that when the Department of Transportation privatized the function, the role of issuing licenses and registrations, they allowed the contractor to charge a fee of $8.50 on each licence. As I understand it, the department is still charging that $8.50 charge on all licences and registrations that they issue. The problem that I have with that is that $8.50 goes directly into, as I call it, the black hole, and doesn't really go to a specified activity. What I would recommend to the Minister is that perhaps the department look at calling it a levy or calling it something else, and channelling that money. There is, I think, 22,000 registered vehicles in the Northwest Territories, and if everybody pays $8.50, that is a small pot of money but it could go into road improvements, or roadside turnout improvements and things of that nature instead of just disappearing into the revenue fund. That is something I think the department should take a look at. I think that is about all I had. Maybe a question for the Minister is will he take a look at perhaps calling that $8.50 something else and channelling it towards roadside turnouts or road improvements, or something of that nature so that people don't really feel that bad about paying it and it just disappearing? Thank you.