Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Laughter
Oh, sorry. Sorry, Mr. Speaker. This is an issue that has been on the drawing board for some time. It has been raised by many of the representatives from the Sahtu and the Sahtu has really been focusing on improving the infrastructure in their riding, in their region in the area of air transportation. It is probably the most used form of transportation for that region.
We’ve responded in the last while by including in our budgets the runway for Tulita, extending that runway. It’s a $2.5 million project. We are also dealing with Fort Good Hope, the extension in that community. And we are moving the airport completely in Colville Lake so that they’ll have a new location.
The discussion on the 2010 rule came about several years ago as a result of a concern that there was two types of aircraft currently flying in the Sahtu: the Beech 99 and the Twin Otter. The federal government’s new guidelines would require that testing be done to show that these aircraft can land and take off within the size of our airports. Given the age of when these airplanes were built, there was no history, there was no documentation to show that these tests were done. We had incurred the air carriers to follow up on that and have the actual testing done. That was never, ever done by any of the companies that were concerned around this issue, so we took it upon ourselves as a department to contact some of the companies that were manufacturing these planes and upgrading these plans and that we knew could do the testing.
As a result, the information will be coming forward on the Beech 99 aircraft. We expect that to be
favourable to meet what we have in terms of runway lengths. We also had been dealing with Viking Air out of B.C. that has also indicated they are finalizing their testing. In that light, once we have all the information in place and provided to the federal government, there will be really no negative impact by this new 2010 rule.
The people in the Sahtu have indicated that they still have a strong desire to fly some of these other planes that have come on the market, the Beech 1900. Mr. Speaker, this plane is in high demand in the Sahtu and some other communities as a result that they are now becoming very cheap as other jurisdictions won’t allow them and are restricting them from their runways because they’re in the same situation as what our Twin Otters were. There are some changes in the very recent months and it’s really taken away some of the urgency of looking to extend the runways.
Mr. Speaker, we are, as a Cabinet we might be voting on this. This is a recommendation to the government, but I think the circumstances have changed as to the requirement to extend runway lengths. I would mention that to have to extend runway lengths at both these airports would probably cost us close to $2 million. It’s about $800,000, $900,000 for each runway and we’d have to do it, in all fairness, to all the communities where we have airports. We’re probably looking at more to the tune of $60 million to do them all so that we’re fair to all the different ridings. At this point we don’t agree that it’s required. We have far more urgent investments that are needed. We need to do the airport in Fort McPherson. We need to move the airport in Trout Lake. Mr. Speaker, we would be required to find these dollars from somewhere within our own budget and right now it’s going to be very difficult. Those are my comments, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.