The normal course of practice is that the Government of the Northwest Territories doesn’t pay for damages when the road has been maintained. If there are specific circumstances where there’s litigation and we’re named in the case, that would be a different matter. But as just a general matter of course the practice is that where the road has been maintained to the appropriate standard, we don’t approve payment for claims of damages.

I think this government does have to do a better job of maintenance and dealing with the hazards that are put in front of our travelling public. I think we do have to realize that we have to take some responsibility for that. In cost reduction efforts and whatnot we sometimes sort of forget that public safety is supposed to be paramount. But when you start having three or four people taking buckets of gravel and filling in potholes on a highway because the government is trying to think they’re going to save money, to me that’s not proper maintenance, especially with the condition of the Dempster Highway in the last number of years.

We had previous commitments last spring to see an improvement in the highways. Again, this year has been nothing but complaints when talking to people driving the Dempster. More importantly, read the logs in regard to the visitors’ centre, and you can see exactly what the tourist traffic are saying.

So again I’d like to ask the Minister in regard to this issue about liability associated with the travelling public…. I know that this government has to take some responsibility in regard to those reductions by way of maintenance, in which we are causing damages to individuals’ vehicles because of the conditions of the roads. Have you looked at this whole area of compensation or in regard to insurance? What are we doing by way of risk management to focus on that specific area? I know that people have insurance and whatnot, but again, the insurance usually only covers the PL/PD on a vehicle, so what is the government doing to ensure that?

There are two factors, of course. There is the condition of the road and the condition of the vehicle. We have, clearly, responsibility for the condition of the road and the maintenance that we provide. But as I indicated, the normal course of practice is that we don’t pay out for complaints for damages for people just driving on a road that we are maintaining. The other question that we don’t have a lot of awareness of, of course, is that when we get a complaint, the condition of the vehicle may be involved, that resulted in the complaint. That’s the current status. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I believe there is a correlation between maintenance and no maintenance, and we know people are complaining that there is no maintenance being done on the road by government because of cutbacks or reductions. We’ve been telling the people in the field, “Sorry; we don’t have any money; we can’t do any maintenance,” and basically using that as the reason for not doing maintenance. I think we do have a responsibility to ensure that maintenance takes place. Cost reduction reasons is usually the excuse for not doing maintenance.

So I’d like to ask the Minister again: what is this government doing to ensure that whatever we do by way of reductions in policy does hinge on the public safety in regard to the traveling public?

Transportation is spending about $5 million a year on capital and $2 million to $3 million a year on maintenance on the road, which is where we’re demonstrating our commitment to maintaining the Dempster to the best of our ability with the resources that we have.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Next on the list is Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just want to note that for the communities, they don’t get to see this part of the Leg. work, the Committee of the Whole business. Usually we’ve concluded the TV time, as we call it, for the communities before this section. I’d like to say hello to the communities.

While we’re discussing the capital budget with respect to Transportation, in my region, the Nahendeh riding, we had a huge upset in the travelling public when the roads collapsed in the spring. There are a number of reasons for it, but the main reason is that it is an old road and structure that needs continuous improvement. In fact, that was recognized by our government, and we’ve reconstructed huge sections, especially from the B.C. border towards Fort Liard. That was very much needed. The 20 kilometres they have done to date is a huge improvement. We’d sure like to see the other 12 kilometres done up to the standard that is there. We’re hoping that we can press towards eventually chipsealing that section again. I know that part was chipsealed briefly for the three months before it all broke apart.

There was a good foreshadowing of a much improved road transportation system that we could have, but now we’re seeing to improve the road and do it better. It takes reconstruction to do that, and it takes a lot of our Transportation resources. We have done that in the past using our CSIF dollars, especially at that one section.

The new collapse in the road there, Mr. Chair, is about one kilometre — I think 170 to 190; I may be wrong on that — but for almost two kilometres, maybe more actually, the cover was destroyed right to the sub-base, right to the clay base, and became, in effect, a mudhole, so we shut down the highway system. Transportation tried their best to get it restored in the early months, but they had to wait for better weather to do that. As a result, these roads were shut down.

It is part of our national highway system and also part of our tourism strategy for the NWT to bring tourists off the Alaska Highway and up Highway No. 7 toward the Northwest Territories to come and see

the beauty of our great country. But once the word gets out that Highway No. 7 is shut down…. Word of mouth spreads very fast to all the travellers from our southern provinces, as well as the U.S. The fellow that owns an airplane company in Fort Simpson indicated that his contacts in Europe and Germany were actually mentioning the fact that Highway No. 7 was closed in the Nahendeh riding. He said, “Look, Kevin, it’s a very important road; we’ve got to do something about it.”

So this spring I made numerous Member’s statements and got assurances from the Minister at that time that the section that had collapsed would be reconstructed. In fact, I had — I like to say Granny from Nahanni — Granny from Nahanni tell me: “Look, Kevin, what you do is you open the road, and then you bring in more gravel. You fill it in with rip-rap and rebuild the road.” Housewives and grannies are telling me how to reconstruct the road.

What, in effect, they had done for that section is just open it up, dry that clay base and then put it back together, and now they’ve got a good gravel cover. But I’m saying and my people are saying, “That is not good enough, Kevin. Come this spring we just may get the same situation, because in effect the same type of base is still there.” So we’ve got to look at some kind of reconstruction.

Numerous memos and e-mails to the department and to the Minister indicate to me that they’re going to be looking at some more work next year, but what has happened is that they had to take away from the resources that were there initially for the first 32 kilometres, Mr. Chair. To take away that much…. We needed to work and reallocate to another section that collapsed. Maybe there’ll be more; there’s got be more assessment done on Highway No. 7.

It’s that old classic syndrome of taking away from Peter for Paul, Mr. Chair. I cannot advocate for that. In fact, I had thought that here is a sure, good case for extraordinary funding, if any, that our government should identify. Nowhere are there any indications in any of my correspondence that there was extraordinary funding looked at for Highway No. 7, particularly for this collapse of the highway. Often we do that, like when there’s an emergency. We have classic examples of schools collapsing and cracking in half and that kind of infrastructure. You know, there’s emergency funding, and this type of infrastructure is collapsing as well, so I don’t see why it doesn’t qualify for extraordinary funding. I think that should be so.

I just want to talk a little a bit about our discussion on, I believe, last Friday. We removed $1.4 million from, I think it was, Highway No. 5, the chipsealing. I’m not too sure how that was going to work, but we removed $1.4 million. What I would like to see is a reallocation of those resources. I know that’s

something the Committee of the Whole has being been discussing and looking at, and at the appropriate time we will debate that in the motion, Mr. Chair.

For me, I would like to continue to reiterate that Highway No. 7 is a very important piece of highway. It was regarded Canada-wide, and even globally people talk about that piece of infrastructure. We’ve got to treat it as such, as a highly valuable piece of infrastructure that we’ve got to continue to rebuild. The case here is to rebuild and reconstruct it.

So I’d like press upon the department that we continue to spend those resources. They will not take away from other reconstruction efforts on that section. That’s the key. Even though it happened in the springtime, the slowdown and the load restrictions on Highway No. 7 impacted us throughout the summer. In fact, there were many, many cases where it caused great disruptions of moving freight, et cetera. I could just go on. Well, actually one of the biggest ones was that we had high school students who got interrupted two ways: once because they got overflowed on Highway No. 1 just this side of the Providence junction, and the school bus went around and just about got interrupted on the Highway No. 7 side to get back to Fort Simpson, but fortunately the road had not deteriorated to where it was impassable at that point. It just goes to show the importance of Highways No. 1 and No. 7.

I cannot reiterate enough the importance to my riding of having a good base transportation infrastructure that is solid and reconstructed. If there’s anything I can ask the Minister at this point, Mr. Chair, it’s this: what exactly is the strategy and the go forward plan to work on and reconstruct Highway No. 7?

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Neudorf.

The issue is in regard to not being able to carry out the work. I don’t believe that is true. I believe we have the capacity and ability to do as much work as we can, but I’m not going to argue that point with the Minister or his officials. I do want to reference the motion I spoke about earlier. I’d like to move a motion here.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche.

I move that this committee strongly recommends that the Department of Transportation take urgent action to increase funding in the amount of $1.4 million for Highway No. 7, kilometre 0 to 254.1 project on the Liard Highway; and further, that the necessary funding arrangements be included in the second estimates document that will be presented to the House in February of 2009 for fiscal year 2009–2010. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The motion is on the floor, and it is being distributed. The motion is now distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. A lot of my deliberations I’ve pretty much stated already for the public record. I would just say again that Highway No. 7 is a critical piece of infrastructure that runs between Fort Simpson and Fort Liard and Fort Liard to the B.C. border. I believe and the committee believes as well that with their support we must continue to establish the importance of this highway system. It is 40 to 50 years old, and much needed reconstruction has to be continued and done on those sections. I know

that we’ve got the CSIF dollars slated and that we’ve been dedicating a lot of our resources to reconstruction from kilometre zero to 32, which is the B.C. border to Fort Liard, but it’s the other sections that we’re going to have to pay attention to. I believe that by reallocating more of this money to Highway No. 7, we can expedite the process, because, let’s face it, it’s deteriorating faster than we keep up with it. The only way we can keep up to it is dedicating more resources. I believe this is one of the ways we can do it.

Thank you, Mr.

Menicoche. To the motion.

Question is being called. I will call on Mr. Menicoche to conclude debate on…. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly have some thoughts about this motion. I thought about the highways in all the Mackenzie Valley in the north, and I’m going to not support this motion.

I think this motion should look at other highways. I also mentioned before that the Dempster Highway up in Inuvik certainly needs some work, especially with dust control. I have seen it. That’s a whole region that has been in the dust for a long time in terms of the use of that highway. I certainly understand Mr. Menicoche’s concerns about this situation. I’ve been made aware of it.

However, for myself, I look at some of the roads. I certainly do not agree with the motion in terms of the recommendations to reallocate the funding. I think that the people of Beaufort-Delta and the Mackenzie region, in terms of dust control and what they can do to enhance safety…. This is something that should be strongly considered with the amount of money that’s in here from Transportation for Highway No. 5. However, I want to state for the record that I think there are other areas that should be on record. I am going to leave it at that and have some discussions with the department after.

Thank you, Mr.

Yakeleya. Question has been called. I call upon Mr. Menicoche to conclude debate on the motion.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to state that I am encouraged by my fellow committee members for moving this motion forward, and I appreciate their support. As well, I would like to request a recorded vote.

Thank you, Mr.

Menicoche. The Member has requested a recorded vote. All those in favour, please stand.

All those opposed, please stand.