Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems like we are having a chipseal theme day and I am going to fall right in line with that because I think it is a crucial item, especially dealing with gravel highways, dust control and all the aspects

associated with maintenance of gravel highways and how we can cut down on the operations and maintenance appliance of calcium and other chemicals to our highways.

I think that we have to seriously find ways of dealing with these issues. I know that there is, as the Member stated, 1,400 kilometres of highways that are gravel topped and I think that we do have to find alternatives to that. I think that it is important that we do pilot projects on different sections of the highways. I know that I have requested that for a number of years from previous Ministers, going back to the 14th and also in the 13th Assemblies

with previous Transport Ministers, looking at pilot projects on the Dempster Highway, either between the community and the airport or the community and the water source, or even the community to eight kilometres from town. I think that we have to start somewhere and sometime.

I know that there is a lot of chipseal going on and resurfacing in Inuvik and possibly work on the airport in Inuvik. There are airport extensions and I think that we have to find a way of working these into existing projects, or even future projects, but having the ability to do it. I know I have touched on the item of Easy Street in regards to that. I had an opportunity to meet with a company here in Yellowknife who basically is the distributor of that product in the Northwest Territories and I was pretty impressed with the type of application, because it is a cold appliance. You don’t have to heat it up, you don’t have to store it, you can leave it outside.

I think most community equipment in our communities are loaders, graders and dump trucks, so we don’t need that big type of equipment to do this. I think it is perfectly designed for the North and I think that we should seriously consider looking at these types of applications or appliance.

In regards to the different things we have tried, we have tried chipseal, we have tried pavement and I think it is time that we try, and I know it is not going to work everywhere, but I think we should at least make the effort.

I would like to ask the Minister, I know I have requested pilot projects before, I would just like to know how much of a commitment can I get from this Minister that we seriously consider it. I know that the community of Fort McPherson is considering expanding their road resurfacing. They are talking to different firms, considering putting some of their gas tax money to expanding the chipseal in that community. I think that from a community perspective, the quality of life that changes simply by chipsealing one road down the centre of a community and you are not walking in mud, you are not dealing with dust when people walk down the street. People feel comfortable that they are walking down the street. More importantly, peoples’ houses that are adjacent to a dusty road

or dusty highway, especially for the women that have to clean everyday and whatnot, for them it is frustrating.

I think that having dust, trying to keep your house clean when you are having to deal with the dust issue, I think it is more of a quality of life issue than just dust alone and I think that this is a perfect opportunity for us to improve the quality of life in our communities by way of doing something to deal with the problems of mud and dust in communities. I would just like to ask the Minister how serious we are about implementing some of these initiatives, moving them forward. Call them pilot projects, we have to find money. We’ll help you find it somewhere.