Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments I have will probably be in five areas I want to speak to the Minister about.

The first area is the recent discussions we had in this House this afternoon on the Mackenzie Valley Highway and the approaches that could be discussed between the communities and this department here specific to the Sahtu region. The research that I’ve read and the documents I’ve read on the community approaches to the Mackenzie Valley Highway are quite appeasing in terms of the regional economic stimulus that could be happening in the long term with this approach. I’ve also read in the Hill Times that the federal Minister

of Transportation and Infrastructure has $4 billion available and that $4 billion is there for projects that could be done in 25 months. According to the Hill Times, the Minister is willing and waiting to see how soon he can get this money out into the communities and regions and territories or provinces. I’m hoping that the Minister could take advantage of the limited time we have with this funding here as stated in the Hill Times with the federal Minister.

In the same breath I wanted to ask the Minister about these dollars that are available in Ottawa, that if there’s any way that his department could push very strongly to put the proposal, I think it’s ready to go -- the Bear River Bridge proposal. Because I think that Bear River Bridge might fit quite nicely within the time frame of 25 months. If that’s the type of funding that can go forward. I’m not privy to the details on the requirement or criteria for the Bear River Bridge, but it’s something that is being bounced back and forth. The Bear River Bridge went through all the stages to a point where the steel had to be redistributed to other projects in the Northwest Territories. I wonder if that’s something the Minister could bring forward to the federal Minister and get the Bear River Bridge built for us.

The Oscar Bridge is somewhat a sore issue in the communities of Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope. It’s between those two communities. The Oscar Bridge has been sitting there without any type of structural movement or any type of work done on it. It’s quite a few dollars, but I think that’s something the department needs to own up to and do the right thing and complete that bridge by putting the approaches onto that creek there. It’s really an eyesore in terms of driving by it and I think that bridge needs to get done as soon as possible.

The airports in my community...I certainly want to thank the department and the Minister for extending Tulita and Fort Good Hope. However, with the conversations about Deline and Fort Good Hope, who have partnerships arranged with North-Wright Air, that we are looking at investing into further aircrafts that would meet the 2010 Transportation Canada rule in terms of runway length. I think that rule will come into effect in about 21 months from now. There are some other details I’m not going to get into, because correspondence has been going between this department and North-Wright and Deline. I know Fort Good Hope spoke on it, but I haven’t received any type of correspondence to address their concerns. However, it’s been quite an interesting exchange of correspondence as to he said, she said.

What I’m asking for is if the Minister would consider North-Wright and Deline’s request in terms of seeing if Fort Good Hope and Deline can receive

an extra 1,000 feet of runway to their airports right now. This would mean a lot in terms of safety. This would mean a lot in terms of lifting restrictions. This had to be a very contentious issue and I am certainly going to start bringing it up within the life of this time we sit here.

North-Wright has invested $1.6 million into Yellowknife’s Airport here in terms of a terminal and construction. If you look at all the agencies down the Mackenzie Valley in terms of usage of government transportation facilities at the airports, I think North-Wright has one of the most leased spaces within this department. I think some very careful and serious commitments need to be discussed when we talk about airport runways in our region here.

Mr. Chair, the department has looked at winter roads and I’m very grateful that the winter road from Fort Good Hope to Colville Lake is being considered as part of the infrastructure on highway systems. I think that’s something that’s good, because now we know for sure that road will be somewhat safe in terms of being put into Colville Lake. The winter roads, certainly they still continue to need upgrading and safety. They need to have some improvements, cut down some hills. Certainly when I read the report on the Mackenzie Valley Highway construction I noted the number of bridges between each community. The Minister has indicated a number of times of the amount of bridges that are going in, the amount of bridges that are being worked and still some bridges that need to be completed between the communities, so I continue to support the Minister on building these much needed bridges along the winter roads.

There’s an aspect here, in Fort Good Hope, that they spoke to me about last year and I want to bring this to the Minister’s attention in terms of the consideration of the winter roads, if the Minister would consider putting in the winter road between Fort Good Hope to the Dempster Highway, in terms of looking at that section. It’s been scoped out. It’s been looked at. It’s about 345 kilometres south. If you hit the Dempster Highway and you come 60 kilometres south of Inuvik. Is this something that they would consider and look at as any other projects that have been asked by us for the department to consider? That way, during the winter months at least, we can have people from Fort Good Hope, the Wells could have some connection up to Inuvik. There are family members...There are needs from the communities of Good Hope to drive up to Inuvik. There are people in the Inuvik Regional Hospital from our communities.

Mr. Chair, I want to bring these general concerns up from our region. l look forward to the Minister’s response to other areas that certainly would bring

regional economic stimulus to our region and also to regions. As he spoke of how to distribute the monies across the board here and I’m asking in the Sahtu, because we have seasonal access to roads outside of our communities, that we look at some other areas that would make it cheaper to travel and bring the cost of living down in our communities. As well, we have the winter roads, or even with the extension of our runways we’d take advantage of these areas. I thank the Minister for his opening presentation.