Mr. Speaker, I want to assure Members of this House, specifically Mr. Abernethy, that the department does have a heart. The department is working on the schedule.

I want to thank the Member for bringing this issue to my attention. I will be reviewing this issue with my staff and ensuring that when there’s specific issues such as cold weather, we have a provision there to allow people to come into our office a little earlier than the scheduled time we had posted for the public.

In my Member’s statement I also talked about our lovely drivers’ licences, the ones with the nice little holograms on them. To get those, you need to go in with a picture ID as well as proof that you live in the Northwest Territories, often a power bill. Once you get that card, you would think that would be a valid piece of ID, which suggests you wouldn’t need to necessarily bring in a different form of valid ID when you come back again.

In the situation I described, the person went forward with that nice piece of ID, took it forward. They were told, by policy: “Not acceptable. We need you to bring in another form of picture ID and the same power bill that you brought in three months prior when you got your driver’s licence the first time.”

Once again, I’d like the Minister to commit to reviewing their policies to ensure that those lovely IDs that we spent so much money on creating, buying and delivering to our public would be useful as official ID within the government when people return with those same drivers’ licences.

Mr. Speaker, again I thank the Member for bringing the constituent’s concerns to my attention. I would look at the policies and reasons and be willing to work with the Member on this specific issue in terms of the new general identification cards and the policy that we have in place. I would be happy to work with the Member on this issue.

Today I talked about the importance of providing adequate support to deliver sport recreation youth programs to my communities and to another riding. My questions are for Minister of MACA.

Mr. Speaker, what is the Minister going to do to assist the community of Lutselk’e regarding problems associated with the operation costs of a new arena?

We have been working with the community of Lutselk’e for some time, since the beginning of this project, when we came forward with a partnership arrangement to build and construct the arena. That has been done. The arena’s been opened for operation since January of last year.

Since then, we’ve continued to work with them on a number of different areas, including some of the deficiencies that had to be rectified. We also worked with them to identify, through their O&M dollars, priorities of investment for this facility. We’ve also provided, through the new deal, additional dollars for capital that they can utilize for enhancements such as a Zamboni or other things in the area of capital for the facility. We’ve also worked with them to identify an adequate source of utility funding for this facility.

On a previous occasion the Minister replied to one of my questions about working for sport and youth infrastructure from different sources. Can the Minister tell me if he has worked directly with the communities of Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution in regard to leveraging dollars from other sources?

Mr. Speaker, as indicated earlier, we had an excellent partnership arrangement with Lutselk’e on this facility. The community had wanted to see this facility a lot bigger than what we had initially targeted to build in the community. They came up with some of their own funding from their own sources to increase the size, increase the footprint of this facility.

We haven’t worked directly with them to attract new dollars. We have worked with other communities such as Nahanni Butte to spend money on their gym, but in the community of Lutselk’e we haven’t. Not as a specific community but through the gas tax program, we are working to try to expand the criteria so that the smaller communities and the larger ones in the Territories can utilize some of their funding towards recreational facilities. Thank you.

In one of the previous replies from the Minister pertaining to the new deal, the Minister indicated there would be evaluations on the new deal. Can the Minister tell me if the evaluation of the new deal has been planned for Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution?

Mr. Speaker, the quick answer to that is no. The evaluation is something we plan to do. At this stage it’s too early to go down and do the evaluations in the communities. We’d wait a little while longer before we start that.

Mr. Speaker, today I spoke about the shortage of teachers’ housing in the communities of Paulatuk and Sachs Harbour and its impact on the communities’ local housing market. I would like to ask the question of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Is the Minister aware of the shortage of teachers’ housing in the communities of Paulatuk and Sachs Harbour?

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the Member for asking that particular question. Yes, we are aware as a department. As the Members will know, it is a Territorial-wide issue. Housing is a real challenge for professionals living in the community, whether it be nursing, health workers, social workers and most recently the teachers as well. So we are aware of it, and we are working with the communities and the N.W.T. Housing Corporation to find some solutions to this whole ordeal of housing shortages for the professionals in the communities.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister: will the department look at putting four-plex units into Paulatuk and Sachs Harbour to address the shortage of teacher housing?

Mr. Speaker, we are working with different parties. We’re doing a pilot project in one of the regions. We’re doing design work and having the Housing Corporation guarantee financing as a third party because the G.N.W.T. does not get involved with housing. We are looking at options of how we as a department can get involved to find a solution to finding or building these units in the communities. We are looking for partners in the communities.

Just to let the Member know, my department staff has met with the Beau-Del board of education as well and also various parties from the Beau-Del area, and they did indeed stress this as well. So we are doing what we can as a department to work with that.

Thank you, Minister, for your comments.

Mr. Speaker, would the Minister commit to immediately look at this urgent issue and meet with the communities and myself to discuss options for addressing this important issue?

Mr. Speaker, yes, it would be an honour to go visit Nunakput. We did arrange to visit the community, but due to circumstances, we couldn’t visit. We are planning to make arrangements to visit the community. Probably after session sometime we’ll make some arrangements to go visit the community. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, in regard to my Member’s statement, I touched on the proposal that was recommended by the Inuvik Chamber of Commerce to look at a bridge across the Peel River in 1981. Back then the estimated cost was $2 million for a one-lane bridge and $4 million for a two-lane bridge. They wanted $20,000 to do the survey, the report and the assessment. Yet some 26 years later we’re still talking about it.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation exactly what are we doing as a government to look at all our bridge crossings in the Northwest Territories and remove our ice bridges and replace them with permanent bridges?

Mr. Speaker, the Member for Mackenzie Delta is correct in terms of the needed infrastructure across the Northwest Territories, especially the issue that he’s brought up. In the future I do see bridges across the Mackenzie, across the Liard, across the Peel, across the Great Bear. In terms of these needs, of course, we rely heavily on the federal government.

Mr. Speaker, I’m looking forward to the day when we can announce some of these bridges that are desperately needed to get across the rivers and to deal with climate change and the amount of traffic that’s coming into our communities.

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, there are some major landfills in the Beaufort Sea in regard to oil and gas leases being let go. We start looking at the possibility of another boom again in the Beaufort. But in order to serve that industry, we have to ensure that we have the capacity by way of infrastructure to basically supply that industry, like we are with the mines.

I’d like to ask the Minister: has your department looked at any surveys for the Peel River in regard to a possible bridge?

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to the House and to the Member, we are looking at bridges in certain areas for communities and regions in terms of economic development, such as he mentioned. We are certainly looking at the area of Tsiigehtchic in terms of improving that crossing, in terms of having a plan, an initiative to increase the winter crossing there.

Certainly, the Peel River is high on our list in terms of looking at infrastructure to increase development into the communities such as the Bear River and other bridges that we see desperately need to be in place to support the economic development that’s happening in the North.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I heard a yes somewhere in that answer.

This issue has been around for some time. I know the Gwich’in Development Corporation is looking at the possibility of a P3. Since we already have a patent down with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, if we get $9 million to do this, we’ll go ahead and do it.

I’d like to ask the Minister: is he open to looking at the possibility of a P3 initiative using the patented Deh Cho Bridge Corporation model so that we can go ahead and build a bridge for $6 million, which is a lot less than $165 million? I’d like to ask the Minister: would he consider a P3 for the Peel River Bridge with the Gwich’in Development Corporation?

Mr. Speaker, the Member brings up a very interesting proposal. With all the infrastructure in the Northwest Territories in terms of the Peel River crossing, the Mackenzie crossing, the Bear crossing, we have some models out there. We have industry wanting to come in.

This department is looking for partnerships in terms of improving our infrastructure down the Mackenzie Valley, the Beaufort, in through the South Slave. We’re looking for partnerships. I’m interested in looking at partnerships. I’m interested in sitting down with the Member for Mackenzie Delta, with cabinet here, and looking at all the possibilities where we can see infrastructure being built in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that pitch has already been made. There has been a request to look at this.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he can go back to his department and reopen those negotiations, since the proposal has already been issued and the request has been made. I’d like to have the Minister, along with myself, meet with the appropriate parties regardless — the bridge development corporation, the MACA group, whoever — and get on with this project, and we’ll use the Deh Cho model.

Mr. Speaker, is the Member saying that we use the Deh Cho model? I’m not going to make the presumption that the Deh Cho model is a good model to use.

I’ll commit to look at this request by the Member in terms of what’s been done so far to initiate the Peel River Bridge project. I’ll look at it, and I’ll be happy to sit down with the Member. I’d like to have my colleague see if we want to proceed further. I’ll ask the department to dust the information off and bring it to my attention. I’ll be happy to sit down with the Member and talk about it.