Page 10-23, activity summary, highways, operations expenditure summary, $42.001. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. On the highways, I'd like to ask the Minister when we expect to see Highway No. 3 finished, and also where we are with the Corridors for Canada. We need to anxiously work on lots of other

highways in the country and we have had a change of government, change of Minister. How far did we get into for the Corridors for Canada in terms of making it work for us concretely? I guess I'm just looking for an update as a member who is not a member of the GED committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. That question technically comes up under capital infrastructure later on and not on this page, however, I'll ask Mr. McLeod if he would provide that update. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we are expecting to do the chipseal of the final 12 kilometres this summer. The reconstruction is complete. There are some areas that we have some concern that we may have to go look and see what is causing some problems in areas where we're experiencing some frost heaving.

As for the Corridors for Canada II, we had just enough time to submit a document to the previous government before an election was called. We are now in a process of making contact with the new federal Minister, and we will take the first opportunity we can to sit down and discuss some of the programs that we had targeted to fund this initiative through. Thank you.

So I guess we're at a very, very, very preliminary stage of this proposal, or was the Minister able to get much in-road into that project idea with the previous Minister?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. McLeod.

Madam Chair, the intent of Corridors for Canada II was to carry on with a number of the initiatives that we had started off with with the funding from Corridors for Canada, the first document that we submitted and received money for. We wanted to continue. We wanted to make sure there was a smooth transition for when the dollars were all spent. Those projects are supposed to be coming to an end; 2008-2009 are the final projects. We were hoping to have new dollars to commit to the ongoing work that's required in the Mackenzie Valley, and the Highway No. 5, 6 and 7, and all the different highways where we need to invest new dollars. So we have had opportunity to talk to the previous infrastructure Minister and there was really some good indicators that there was going to be another infrastructure program rolling out very soon. We still take comfort in the fact that the new government, the Conservative government has indicated that there will be some investment in infrastructure, and that gives us a level of comfort. We haven't heard anything in the area of actual investment in roads or road systems, so we will be making contact and having that discussion as soon as we can.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I realize that I'm sort of discussing this sort of in a general way, so I'll just leave this as my last question. If the Minister could tell me if there are any concrete meetings that he knows of that he will have with his federal counterpart or any other provincial Ministers that he could share with us. Also, I'm wondering if we should give thought to passing a motion, or debating in this House, about the importance of the Mackenzie Valley highway all the way to Tuk. Sometimes a resolution in the House helps to...I don't know. I'm assuming that northern residents, reduction of that or increasing the deduction, that resolution I'm hoping would help this government and the new MP push that idea. There has certainly been discussions about housing possibilities coming out of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, so why not about the road? I mean, it's pretty right up there. Maybe Minister McLeod is working privately and working with his counterpart, but maybe it would be a good thing to say that we support this project. I can't remember if we did that already previously, but, you know, we should try to talk about what our territorial vision is about the highway, that we need to have a highway within the Territories and it should go all the way to Tuk. It is a good idea, now that the pipeline thing is...You know, I think it is time for us to make a statement on that. Sorry; I guess I can bring that up in AOC. I'll talk to my colleague there, but I think maybe we can work on that. I don't know if the Minister wants to comment on that.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we will have opportunity to discuss these new initiatives, these proposals, with our federal counterpart, Mr. Lawrence Cannon. We do have the opportunity to meet on several occasions a year. Usually it's twice a year we get together with our federal/provincial counterparts and talk about areas that require investment. Our Corridors for Canada II and the Connecting Canada documents are something that we have always had included in our long-term vision. We have a document that was tabled in this House some time ago, I think in the 13th Assembly, that we use as our guiding document. It references the need for a Mackenzie Valley road; it also talks about the different areas that we've included in the Corridors for Canada II. We can and, I guess, we will, table the Connecting Canada and Corridors for Canada II document in the House, and I certainly will give the Members opportunity to move it into Committee of the Whole or whatever this House desires to do with it.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Ms. Lee. Activity...Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think under this topic, or this page here, I wanted to see if the Minister could give us any further indication on the timing, or expected timing, of the further information and a decision on the Deh Cho Bridge, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. McLeod.

Madam Chair, the proponents of the Deh Cho Bridge had gone out for...had been negotiating with a company on acquiring a price for that facility. My understanding is that they've moved away from that and are looking at options of coming forward with a different approach. They have indicated to us that they will have something for us to review by the end of March.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This government has extended considerable support to the proponents, and that has been done, I think, willingly and optimistically. This process has been underway for three or four years now, and I'm wondering if the Minister could give us some sense, are we going to be nearing a point where we will actually be able to come to committee, say, in the coming fiscal year. Is that a reasonable expectation, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There has been a lot of discussion and it's taken a long time. I think it's been at least four years since the idea came forward and the government's been involved with it for at least three years. We've started to hit the final stages of this project. We've been given assurance that the March deadline will be the final one. It will be, yes, we're going to go ahead, or, no, it's not going to go ahead. So we are waiting for the proponent to come back with a proposal for us to consider, and it will be, more than likely, the final option that we will be deciding on. The loan guarantee runs out at the end of March, and we will decide at that time where we're going to go with this.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Braden.

That's fine. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Activity summary, highways, operations expenditure summary, $42.001 million.