Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve listened very carefully to the Member’s statement, like I always do. I have to point out a couple of things that the Member raised.

First of all, he mentioned that there are new laws restricting the landing of airplanes on the highway. That’s not a new law. That’s something that’s existed for quite some time now.

I’m not sure what gives the Member any indication that we’re pulling out the ferry. There has been no notice that we’ll be pulling out the ferry. The ferry will operate conditions permitting.

I did receive the memo from the Minister that I wrote last week. They did use the date of October 25th , that’s Monday, as a potential

date. Residents are concerned because they did get the same message from the Department of Transportation regional office in Fort Simpson. I just want to advise again that the residents have advised me that conditions are good and they don’t see the need for closing October 25th . I would once

again, on their behalf, ask the Minister to do everything in his power to see that we can run the ferry until October 31st .

What type of plan is in place if shutdown is imminent, and how much warning can the community get? I know that sometimes they give 48-hour notice when they shut down in 24 hours. I’d like to ask the department to try to guard against that and try to give the community as much notice as possible. October 31st , if we can get it to

that date it will be an extreme benefit to the residents of the community.

Of course, the longer we can run it, the more benefit it will be to the travelling public that utilizes that ferry. We expect that we’re going to have a warm spell here in the next couple of days and that will probably help us with the weather conditions. We still think the 25th is

going to be a date that we will probably be challenged with the weather and ice. We will follow normal protocol for notifying the community and the general public. Normally we advertise that there will be periodic closure well in advance, then we start giving the 48- and 24-hour notices that we will be pulling the ferry out. So everybody is aware, we’ll make sure that the Member responsible for this riding is notified along with the community leaders.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.