Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sure I heard somewhere in there that there would be the commitment of getting an idea on what type of numbers. Can I get that reaffirmed on how many would use that crossing/bridge? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Yes, Madam Chair, we would commit to trying to compile that.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just an observation before I go to my next question. The reason I bring that point is numerous times our Finance Minister has brought up the fact that we make economic development investments in the Northwest Territories, yet we reap no benefits from this. Therefore I see this as probably a very fruitful $25 million investment, which I believe we're paying a portion through a federal program. My guess would be it's probably 50 percent of that bridge. The point really doesn't matter in the sense of dollar value, but the point of saying that we're making serious investment and we're getting no gains from these. So I caution my other colleagues as we potentially pass the Transportation budget on that issue. We invest up front, we get nothing behind and it does trigger some concerns on this particular issue. Twenty-five million dollars up in

the boonies that two or three big, big trucks use. The boonies. In the sticks. So the issue here is it does draw some flags when our Premier and our Finance Minister talk about no investment return on economic development investment.

My next question is is the federal government contributing of what portion on Highway No. 4, still on page 4, of course? I note a $3 million budget to reconstruct Ingraham Trail between Yellowknife River Bridge and the Detah road access. Could the Minister explain the territorial contribution to that? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the investment in Highway No. 4 is on a 50/50 cost-sharing basis under the CSIF program.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, would the Minister be able to reply on do we have any issues with time on that, such as we have to use it within a certain amount of time or we lose it? Or are there any other constraints that all Members need to be made aware of when it comes to spending this money? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Madam Chair, the CSIF program is a five-year program. There are a number of requirements that we had to qualify for in order to access these dollars. It was based on the Corridors for Canada submission which recognized six projects at the time. It has been reduced down to five. There is a time frame of five years, as I mentioned earlier, and there is a requirement that we, along with our federal counterparts, agree to the projects and provide the backup information as to why the project was qualified. The two main types of criteria that they're looking at that is being utilized of the projects that are selected are projected to be under economic impact, and they also require significant reconstruction.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Although in the Assembly we're not typically allowed to place hypothetical questions, but in a sense that if we had asked this project to defer, would that have any effect on our funding agreements, assuming that we made up this portion thereof in later years of this five-year agreement? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Madam Chair, in a hypothetical situation, I imagine we could do a lot of different things or assume a lot of different things. We do have room to request changes to the federal government. We do have room to ask for deferrals, however, we may encounter problems with time frame. We should be well aware that these projects require the federal government to also approve them. We can't negotiate a deal where they would agree to defer projects. We may lose the money and that's not something we want to do. So we are proceeding with a really good communication plan or a good communication link with the federal government so that we don't run into any challenges with regard to funding or losing funding.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Now the important question to the Minister. Referencing the Minister of Education has continually beat at the point that he has no money for his early childhood development program, I guess the question for this Minister is would he be willing to forego the GNWT's portion of $1.5 million for this year, defer the rest and we can work to find a way to make up the portion that we're removing and reallocating. Would the Minister be willing to do that on this particular project? I will clearly state, I do have some difficulty when we watch the sunsetting of a good project and the Minister says we'll find the money somewhere else. Therefore, I would rather see kids learn, rather than we fix a road so people can go camping. So would the Minister be willing to forego this project this time, and maybe we could get some passion and some open arms from this side of the House to readdress to make up that project in next year's budget? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I think the Minister could probably answer the first half of the question: would he be willing to forego the money. I would say that what happened to that money would be outside of his purview. But I'll ask the Minister to answer the first half of the question. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the money was earmarked for Highway No. 5 for a reason. There are safety concerns, it fit the criteria, there are high traffic volumes, and it's something that we recognize needs to be done. As to whether I'd be willing to forego the dollars, unless there is serious concern raised by Members of this House as to why we shouldn't proceed, the department plans to move forward with it. We may consider and we are looking at ways we can move money from one project to another. But as the Member has requested to just actually forego and if we did, hypothetically forego, our share would go back to general revenues. I have no control whether it can go to projects in Education that the Member is referring to. So at this point I guess the short answer is no, we are not willing to forego the project. We may be willing to look at ways to identify other projects that need and qualify, however moving money around would have to be discussed further.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next on my list for general comments I have Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of the comments that I'm going to make have been touched on before, but in going through the department's main estimates in committee we did touch on a lot of subjects and not the least being Highway No. 3 and the amount of money that is being spent there over the next five years.

In relation to the amount of money that is being spent on other highways throughout the Territories, in our

deliberations there were a lot of questions around how that money was earmarked for Highway No. 3 and why they had put it so high on the priority list. It was brought to my attention, and I actually checked it out, that a lot of that funding came through Corridors for Canada and it was a project that was identified in Corridors for Canada. Not to say that from my perspective that I think that that's the highest priority area that I would put it on. But I do realize that there is a lot of traffic on Highway No. 3 from industry, and the tourist industry has grown quite a bit and uses that highway an awful lot.

Apart from that, the amount of money going in that one was a concern to committee, and the Bear River Bridge was also a concern trying to figure out how it fit the priority spending area. I think from my perspective, one of the areas that I see that continues to be a concern, of course, is the federal government. We have an awful lot of highways to address in the Territories, not only the ones that need reconstruction and are being built. In some places we don't even have any and are trying to get highways in. When we have to depend on going to DIAND and trying to get specific projects identified through infrastructure funding and waiting for them to see and tell us what projects they think are important and which ones are not, it makes it kind of hard, I think, for us as legislators here to make decisions that everybody can have some input into what is important. I can sympathize with the department with the amount of highway system that they have to cover and with the funds that they have to do it.

I think one of the important issues that has to stay on the radar screen and addressed is while we're working in some of these areas, we have to keep a very close eye on the highway system that we have that's in fairly good shape now; the highway from the border north and right from Enterprise to Yellowknife, for that matter. We all know that the traffic on that stretch of road is increasing at quite a pace, and eventually that road is going to start showing its wear and in some cases it already does. Where we get the money to start repairing or rebuilding those sections of road that start really giving into the wear will be a question for sure.

If I had a question for the Minister it would be when we do go to Canada for extra funding, how do we arrive at priorities that we want to put to the federal government to say this is where we need money and asking them to identify projects that we want to go ahead with as new projects? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the process that has been used up until now was used to identify volumes. I am assuming Mr. Delorey is referring to not only the highway system, but to the air transportation system we have in place. So safety is an issue, traffic volume is an issue and also the cost. As I mentioned before, the issue of resource impact was a factor in the SIFF, and also significant reconstruction. That was the evaluation that the six projects were identified under the Corridors for Canada. That was brought forward. We feel that the Government of the Northwest Territories or the Department of Transportation was really in the driver's seat in terms of making the submission. Because of the approach, there was an exception made for the NWT that the dollars could be used on impacted areas and not restricted to the national highway system as other provinces and other jurisdictions are required to. So there was an evaluation on those six projects we brought forward.

As I indicated earlier, one project was dropped off the list because it was new road and it required 100 percent federal investment. That was the Tuk to Inuvik road. The other project that was taken off the list was the Mackenzie River bridge, because there was a private/public partnership arrangement for that project. The one project that was brought forward was the Highway No. 7 reconstruction around Fort Liard. So that's how we ended up with the projects on the SIFF list for funding.

We also accessed the A-CAP funding. Again it's based on the traffic volumes. Many of our airports across the North are used to maximum. Norman Wells, Inuvik, Yellowknife and Hay River all part of those airports that we're looking at doing work in; some for security reasons, some for safety reasons. How we will go from here as a starting point to make our proposals to the federal government; first of all, we're trying to identify where there are dollars that we can access. There was a speech from the Throne that we are trying to interpret what it will mean in terms of new monies for infrastructure for Transportation. We are also trying to see if we can make a second submission to the federal government in terms of under the SIFF program and add more projects to the list. Of course, we have to also be very considerate of the fact of our fiscal situation, and we're continually being reminded by our Finance Minister.

So there is a lot of need across the Territories for infrastructure development, for reconstruction, for replacing some of our equipment, for upgrading our roads. As soon as we have more detail as to what is available and how we would like to proceed, we would certainly be glad to share that with the committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Delorey.