It's been 27 years and counting. I'd like to recognize my wife, Lucille Pokiak, in the gallery. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to recognize all the judges in the gallery here. Also, I want to make special mention to Justice Earl Johnson from Nunavut, who's in the gallery. I'd also like to recognize Paul Andrew who is from CBC and also my home town of Tulita. I'd also like to recognize Betty Quitte from Yellowknife.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for North Slave, Mr. Zoe.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to recognize a former resident of my constituency of Rae Lakes, Ms. Betty Quitte. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. If there's anyone that was missed in the gallery today, I'd like to recognize my executive assistant in the gallery today, Ms...

---Laughter

Sue Tkachuk.

---Applause

If we've missed anyone else in the gallery today, welcome to the gallery. It's always nice to see an audience in the gallery overlooking our proceedings. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a saying that London Bridge is falling down, London Bridge is falling down, but in the Sahtu, our Jackfish Creek Bridge is falling down. So I want to ask the Minister of Transportation, last spring in 2004 the Jackfish Creek Bridge was damaged and was unsafe to use. That closed the airport down for several days and caused an emergency in Fort Good Hope. Almost one year and the bridge still has not been worked on. I want to ask the Minister if he could advise me and the people in the Sahtu, especially those in Fort Good Hope, when this bridge is going to be up and running before the winter road is closed. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess first of all we have to offer an apology to the community of Fort Good Hope and also the Member because I had reassured him that this bridge would be up and running once the winter road was open, and the winter road has been open for some time. We've run into some difficulties with the Jackfish Creek Bridge. We've had to go out to tender on two different occasions and on both occasions we haven't been able to attract a successful company to come in to do this work. What we have done is broken the contract up into a number of different areas and we will oversee it as a department and we are proceeding with the work as we speak. I think some of the work has already started. Most of the contracts have been awarded. There are still a few that we are working on, but our plan is to have the bridge up and running before the end of this winter road season. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Can the Minister provide some assurance to the people in Fort Good Hope that there are emergency plans in case the bridge doesn't get up and is usable, that the airport will not be closed for a couple days in terms of the work that's supposed to get done by the close of the winter season? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, we're very confident we're going to have all this work done. We're going to a completely different design than we had used initially. We're quite comfortable with the fact that we're going to have all this work in place. We will have the bridge up and operating by the end of the month. We should not have any need for different options for a bridge, but if that is the case we will reassure the

community that there will be access to the airport in some form or another. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've seen some e-mails from members of the community of Fort Good Hope and they're indicating that the water flow is above the bridge or close to the bridge and they're afraid that because of the next couple of days the weather is going to be warming up and they're afraid there might be an overflow and the bridge will be unusable. Is there any indication from the Minister in terms of an emergency response plan in terms of the communities having access to the airport outside access to the winter road that goes out of town? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, we are aware that there is some problem with overflow at the present time. We are looking at the situation. We don't anticipate it to be a problem that will slow down the project and we're hoping everything will go smoothly, but we will get back to the Member to talk about how we will deal with it if it comes to an emergency situation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister indicated until the end of the winter season, so can he inform the people in Fort Good Hope and the Sahtu when that might be in terms of the winter road so they could do some planning? I know there's some nervousness in terms of using that bridge. When can the people in the Sahtu and Fort Good Hope look at the closing of the winter road season in terms of the bridge situation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in our budgeting process we approved some money to extend the season. Our target date for the extension of the road is to the end of March. It will all be conditional on weather and it will be day by day. So if the weather cooperates, we should have the road stay open until the end of the month. Thank you.

Than you, Mr. McLeod. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today with questions for the Minister of MACA. I sent a question down to research and they advised me that I had mentioned Nahanni Butte 54 times, the gymnasium 29 times, so all together that's 83 times. That's almost once for every constituent in Nahanni Butte, Mr. Speaker...

---Applause

...except I'm missing three constituents, so I'm going to have to conclude this sitting by asking three more questions of the Minister.

---Laughter

Begging the chair's indulgence, I said I am astounded five times, so I'm going to have to say that two more times, because there are seven Ministers sitting over there.

---Laughter

With respect to that, can the Minister inform me what has been done to date with respect to allocating or planning for the infrastructure funding for the smaller communities? Thank you.