Mr. Speaker, the Member for Tu Nedhe raises a serious issue. We have many communities across the Northwest Territories that are served by winter roads and barging systems. Low water has become an issue for many of these communities, and also the warmer winters are becoming a challenge to service some of the communities in getting the ice bridges and winter roads in place, namely on the Mackenzie/Fort Providence and also in the Tlicho communities.

Mr. Speaker, I point out that if there was a situation, and right now it’s hypothetical, but if there was ever a situation and the barges couldn’t make it into Lutselk'e, that would make it an emergency situation and that would fall under the Department of MACA to take the lead on it and find alternate solutions to get the material or the goods into that community.

Having said that, I would point out that of all the communities that are served by a barging system, the ones on the Mackenzie are probably most at risk. Lutselk'e is probably one of the safer communities because it is on a lake and the lake is quite deep and we don’t expect there will be any challenges in that area. Thank you.