Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is right; we have had some discussion in the last while with the community of Trout Lake. There is, and has been, a problem for some while with the wind directions at the airport with crosswinds and also the number of residents or houses that have been built in the immediate area. We have heard the community voice their concern over the issue. There has been a request for us to look at a new location. We are talking with the community about potential sites and will continue to do so.

In Nahanni Butte, we are looking at working with them and we have included, in this year's budget, some dollars for their access road that they have been working on for some time.

So we were in the community, along with the Member, and we did have a public meeting. At the meeting, there was concern raised and there was a request for us to travel on that road. I did personally drive on the road. There was a lot of work put into that stretch of road. The base is all there and everything else is put in place, including the drainage. Right now, there is still a requirement for some gravel to stabilize the road, so we have agreed that there needs to be an investment and we have included it in this year's budget.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to Nahanni Butte and the highway, it was really great and the community was really pleased to see an addition of $200,000, but the Minister is aware that to do a $200,000 program in today's dollars, it doesn't go very far. I imagine there will be some work scheduled for this year. Is there a way to leverage our dollars to get more work done once we begin building that road this year in terms of gas tax money or road money? I imagine Nahanni Butte, as a settlement, is eligible for some funding to help improve their access roads through the MRIF funding. Is there a way to speed up their road that they have been requesting for many, many years? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a number of options available to the community. The community can be as creative as they want to be. There are also avenues to use in approaching the federal government or DIAND on some requests for additional funding. There is potential for them to access and use some dollars through the gas tax or other new funding coming forward. We don't have a definite formula of how the communities are going to draw down on the gas tax. That's something we would have to wait and see about. So there are a number of avenues.

Where does the community want to go with this? From our standpoint, we have put some money towards it over a number of years; $200,000 for five years. We will continue to work on this initiative with the community, but there are other avenues and we are hoping the communities will be able to put in some of those requests too.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Speaking of roads, the Minister was just in Fort Simpson. We had a nice roundtable discussion with the community in Fort Simpson and the issue of roads did come up, particularly Highway No. 1. It wasn't very clear, but people were asking what the long-term initiatives were by the department for Highway No. 1. I know there's some extra money there. Are we rebasing it? Are we eventually looking at paving Highway No. 1? As well, while we're on paving, in terms of Highway No. 7, the Liard Highway, the section that got destroyed by weather; when is the community looking at getting that done up? The B.C. government did it up to the border right now and they're wondering when we're going to redo ours. There must be money to redo ours. At what point will it be redone? Will it be this year, Madam Chair? If I can direct those to the Minister, please.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There were a couple questions there. First of all, I think it should be clear that at this point we're not planning to pave Highway No. 1 or Highway No. 7. We were for some time hoping that we'd be able to include the reconstruction and paving of Highway No. 1 as part of our legacy requests. We hadn't planned to put any investment on Highway No. 1 until we knew for sure there was a pipeline and there were going to be industry dollars attached to it. However, as resource development has really started to happen in that area and the traffic volumes on Highway No. 1 have increased, we had to respond to some of the situations and some of the erosion on that road as a result of heavy traffic volumes. We did reallocate some money last year. We reallocated $1 million to improve the base and do some drainage work. We also did some engineering last year, and this year we plan to continue on that initiative to improve the base, continue to work on improving the drainage and the foundation of that road to build it up in some areas. We've targeted new monies for a multi-year program on Highway No. 1 and we've also done the same with Highway No. 7.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Would some of the new infrastructure money be targeted or in addition to Highway No. 1 and Highway No. 7, in and around the Nahendeh riding, Madam Chair? I just want to know if there is some extra funding there while they look at speeding up some of the projects that are on the books in terms of the highway. Is the department looking at that, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure what the Member is asking for by speeding up the projects. Right now we have budgeted a total of $9 million for Highway No. 1 to reconstruct and firm up the base and develop the engineering work that needs to be done in that area, including drainage. We've also budgeted a total of $11.5 million for Highway No. 7 from the B.C. border to Fort Liard. That work is to start this year. We budgeted multi-year funding to do work on both those roads, so I'm not totally clear on what the Member is asking. If he's asking us to put more money into earlier years, I might need some clarity on that request.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just saying that Highway No. 1 and Highway No. 7, the $11 million the Minister refers to is kind of spread out over three years or five years. I'm not quite sure. But if there's a way that some of the new MRIF or the gas tax money is

applied to the roads, there probably might be a chance or an opportunity to speed up some of the projects and do a lot of the work today rather than later. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, as Transportation Minister, of course I would love to have the gas tax money spent on the highways, but I think that might be a problem as we look at it from a community standpoint. The gas tax right now is geared towards community infrastructure and there's certain criteria that comes with it. I don't know if that would be flexible enough to put on a territorial highway. We can certainly have that discussion and take a look at it, but right now we're looking at a four-year program to invest in Highway No. 7 and Highway No. 1. We are also having our discussions with the pipeline proponents and we have certain needs we want to bring forward and there are certain legacy discussions we want to have with them and see where that goes and how that unfolds in the future.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. General comments. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few general comments for the Department of Transportation. It's nice to see Mr. Neudorf and Mr. McLeod here, and Ms. Cook, as well.

I know the Minister of Transportation is not responsible for this file, but since I have the department officials here, and the floor on the Department of Transportation, I wanted to talk, for just a minute, on the Deh Cho Bridge project. I do look forward to a briefing that's coming up soon. We have a recommendation that's coming forward, too, in this process. One of the things that I feel, as a Regular Member, is that we should be more involved in what's happening with the Deh Cho Bridge project. I don't know whether this briefing that we're going to be getting is going to get us there; that remains to be seen. But in the past year we haven't been that involved in what's happening. I don't know exactly what's happened to get us to where we're at today.

The concession agreements are the key piece to all of this. I think Regular Members deserve and should be involved in the concession agreements. I know they're a private business deal between the government and the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, but ultimately the government represents the people of the Northwest Territories and I think we certainly need to be a part of the rollout of the concession agreements. So that's one thing I wanted to mention to the Minister.

The other thing I wanted to mention to the Minister, as well, is the airport development, and how important that is to the future of the city of Yellowknife, but also to the Northwest Territories. Yellowknife is the air traffic hub of the entire Northwest Territories and we've got, as the Minister is well aware, interest in a parcel of land immediately adjacent to land that the Department of Transportation has identified as future need for growth for the Yellowknife Airport. That causes me some great concern that we may end up having a residential development in close proximity to our airport development, and this combined services building will be right across the street from a residential neighbourhood. Not to mention the access road that has been much talked about to Kam Lake Industrial Park and whether it has to move further down Highway No. 3 or maybe go straight through a residential neighbourhood. Who knows? Those are some pretty big issues that the Minister has to pay close attention to.

I talked during committee meetings about the combined services building and the fact that it might...I know there's money in the budget going forward here for a few years on that combined services building, but one of the things that comes to mind is that it's a combined services building, right? So whether it's the Department of Transportation looking after airports or looking after highways, I think if you housed your heavy equipment in one yard it might be more advantageous or beneficial, from a cost perspective anyway. Not to mention the fact that it gets your Quonset off the highway into town. It's kind of out of public view if it's off and contained in a combined services area with the airports equipment and the highways equipment. There's going to be a nice road put into the combined services area. I know there was some talk of having an RV area where the present Transportation yard is on the corner of the access road to the golf course and Highway No. 3. That's something that I think maybe should be looked at a little bit. Other than that, I think that's probably about it, Madam Chair. Again, I thank the Minister for paying attention to those comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm sure the Member would agree that this whole airport area has become a very complex and important area in terms of land development with the city, with the Department of Transportation airports division, with the Yellowknives Dene, and also there's been an indication of interest by DND. So my responsibility is to ensure that we have a process where we can deal with all these requests and plans. The city is working with the Department of Transportation on an MOU for the bypass road. We also have an application that's come forward by the Department of Transportation to increase the reserve area, and that will be processed and go through to the city for their comments and review. The YK Dene have come forward with a request to the city for land in the sandpits area, and we also understand there may be interest by other groups for land in that same area. At the same time, I'm obligated to respect and follow the interim measures agreement, and we also have in that same area a huge scientific reserve. So it's a very difficult and challenging scenario that we have to deal with and we are working with all the different organizations. So far, it looks like we'll have positive results. We think that everybody can be accommodated. Of course, the city has a huge role to play in this. They have a land development plan that includes zoning and includes their areas of how they see the city developing. We have to respect that and we will respect that.

We also, as part of the question I guess, have been working to develop the west side of the airport. This year we are looking at a combined services building in that immediate area. We are interested in looking at that facility to be expanded, at some time in the future, to include our highways operation. That's very possible. Right now we don't plan to do that. The facility that the houses our highways operation is still very functional and, when it comes to the end of the life of that facility, of those

facilities in that area, we will certainly consider moving it over. There's also consideration that there might be a possibility that this could be a good area or location for a new fire hall or something of that nature. So all those things, as they come forward, we will consider. Right now we have many issues to deal with and I'm hoping that we will have some resolution, or at least a process to deal with them in the next while.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was wondering if I could ask the Minister what advice or recommendations his officials are giving him in terms of this proposed residential development in that close a proximity to the Yellowknife Airport, and how it might affect future growth plans for the Yellowknife Airport. What are his officials telling him? Thank you.