Thanks, Mr. Chairman. A couple of points. In sort of the vision stuff, the legacy stuff that we talk about and I think we need to keep reminding ourselves about, Mr. Chairman, we have the ongoing legacy of the diamond mines in the south and the south eastern portion of the territory, Mr. Chairman. Then, of course, there's the pipeline, which will extend from north to south along the valley and in the west. We've already talked about the potential of completion of the Mackenzie Valley highway as a legacy of the Mackenzie pipeline. Certainly, some of the legacy expectations of the diamond mines we have sort of yet to see fulfilled, Mr. Chairman. One of those being the long sought after Deh Cho Bridge, which if it's going to be constructed and paid for, Mr. Chairman, at least in part by toll fees, then with every day and every week and every month that we don't have the Deh Cho Bridge built, we're also losing the revenue from the trucks that go back and forth to supply the diamond mines. So there's a legacy project there, and there's also been discussion of other transportation legacies potentially to the Tlicho communities. The Minister just spoke to us earlier today about studies that are underway to see how Tlicho communities could potentially be linked by road, and it is very much spurred by the economic activity that the diamond mines are providing.
More immediate and more direct, Mr. Chairman, is the need for more certainty for the direct supply route to the diamond mines. We suffered a nearly disastrous season last year. Some people would call it a disastrous season last year, Mr. Chairman, because I think there was perhaps two-thirds of the projected loads that made it to site. It caused an enormous consequence on the air side where suppliers and transporters brought in heavy lift aircraft; another, I'm told, $100 million was expended to continue the operation of the diamond mines because of the shortcomings of the winter ice road. Mr. Chairman, if there should be a priority, I believe, for highway or road infrastructure that truly has a return to our economy, and, indeed, I think we'd have very willing partners to come in to help shoulder the cost, it is to find a way to have more certainty and an extended season of supply into the diamond mines. I'm not talking about a full year or full-season road all the way up to the mines. My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that if we essentially look at getting improved conditions up to Gordon Lake or up to basically where the treeline stops and the Barren Lands take over, that we will be avoiding the critical and weakest areas of that winter supply line and even here, Mr. Chairman, as we've done already in the Mackenzie Valley, it may be as straightforward as installing some better portages, some bridges over some of the stream crossings, or finding our way around some of the troublesome lakes. This, I would suggest, is the place we should be looking at soonest because it has the most immediate impact on our economy and the certainty to those areas.
I think, though, linked to that, Mr. Chairman, is also a notion that the department has a responsibility to help provide transportation; secure, reliable, safe transportation, but that need not only be in the shape of airports and roads. Mr. Chairman, and I'm going to go back to the diamond mines, there's a couple of very innovative alternatives out there to flying bulk materials to the diamond mines or, for that matter, to any remote location. One of them is a proposal by a company that says that small diameter pipelines constructed across the tundra, laid underneath lakes, is technology that has been proven around the world for decades now and could indeed be a very viable way for us to supply fuels, both liquid and gas, to northern communities and the diamond mines. Think, Mr. Chairman, of the reduction that this would bring about in environmental costs, the cost of
burning...Ten thousand truckloads are projected to go up to the mines this winter, and I think it's about 2,500 of them could potentially be shaved off if fuels could be piped to the site rather than trucked. That's a lot of diesel fuel; it's a lot of environmental exposure to potential breakthroughs, if a truck were to break through the ice.
Another potential alternate is air ships. I believe there is some kind of a test project somewhere in the NWT, was it last summer? I'm not getting any nods here, so maybe I was reading the wrong comic book, but these have got enormous potential. We don't need airstrips, we don't need runways, but we do need, perhaps, a sense of risk taking, if you will, and an ability and a willingness to experiment and try new things. This is all, Mr. Chairman, in the sense of creating more secure supply at less cost to the environment and potentially even reduce the cost of the product actually delivered to site. I would encourage the Department of Transportation, Mr. Chairman -- I think this is my message -- let's not just think about roads and airstrips and ferries, let's think about assisting in transporting goods by whatever means and join in that in the spirit of thinking outside the box sometimes.
Mr. Chairman, there's one other item and it's closer to my constituency here in Yellowknife, and those are reports that were carried in the media early this year about the approval of a major infrastructure project to the Yellowknife Airport. It's something that's long been discussed, bringing water and sewer services to the last few hundred metres of Old Airport Road and into all the buildings in the airport precinct itself. A very desirable project that would do this city and the airport a lot of good; however, Mr. Chairman, this is a very expensive project, I understand in the neighbourhood of potentially $20 million. It was not one that I, as a Yellowknife MLA, had seen approval for before it was discussed in the media. I know that it had been long and loudly discussed in business plans and in ideas and infrastructure projects that could be undertaken. I recognize and acknowledge that, but there comes a time when if there is actually going to be commitment and approval of taxpayers' money, especially of that magnitude, then it is one of the expectations of our consensus system that MLAs and, I think, other officials would be involved in that decision. We weren't, and I would be looking at the appropriate time for perhaps a bit of an explanation of how that decision came about and where we're going with it. Again, I don't want to dismiss the project outright because it does have tremendous value, but given tight fiscal times and competition for other infrastructure projects, we skipped a beat in the approvals and it's something that I would just like to bring back to the attention of the department and the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.