Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I chose to raise this issue because it is, like I said, becoming two incidents within the last three months. It is quite disturbing to the family. Now they had to recover costs and worry about that, but initially I still do not understand. The family still does not understand why the spouse who was injured or very sick was not assigned or designated an eligible spouse. That is the issue I would like to raise with the Minister. I would like her to check into it. Maybe there is an internal memorandum that has to go around and say, look, are we applying the policy correctly in these cases. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yes, I would be happy to commit to follow up on this and work with the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority to see what happened in those two cases. I am sure that they have lots of information to help us with that, and if there are any clarifications or enforcement needed, I would also present that to them. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it is a great idea.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, the Member has raised the issue of the Dempster for quite a few years now. We have been working hard to address some of the issues in terms of reconstruction that was required for that portion of the road in the North. It is something that has been quite challenging as finances have been difficult to acquire over the last while. We have managed to set a budget of I think about $8 million now annually to move a little quicker and getting more on that road. That has been our focus to respond to some of the concerns out there, try to get the road widened, to try to get the section straightened and put a lift on other areas that would help this road become more and better improved.

We also had committed to the Member that we would look at seeing how we could incorporate at least a test of doing some kind of dust suppression on it. I think, up to now, we have only been covering about 100 kilometres of this road with dust

suppressant, calcium. We started looking at it. We have not talked with the municipality. We were not aware that we were at a stage where they are considering doing some chipseal, but we will commit to doing that. We have done some work on our own and the economics of it, but we certainly can commit to talking to the community. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to sit down with the hamlet and also Fort McPherson is one of the communities that did receive main street chipseal funding in which they chipsealed the main street. Again, at some point they are going to have to upgrade it, extend it or find a way of maintaining that strip of chipseal. I think it is important that they do consider their options. One of their options is to look at the possibility of working on other streets in the community and also maintain what they already have, so build off of that.

I would just like to ask the Minister exactly how soon is it possible for himself or his department to sit down with myself and the community of Fort McPherson to the hamlet council and see if there is a possibility of a project that we can work on jointly coming forward and hopefully it could be brought by way of maybe by this summer starting the feasibility and the planning and see exactly where we can go from there. I would just like to ask that from the Minister.

Mr. Speaker, sitting down with the municipality we can do right away including the MLA. We will have to work around our schedules. We have done some financial analysis and looked at different options that we have in front of us. I think we can probably rule out the concept of pavement overlay. That is expensive even on the southern parts, even in Alberta. It is a very expensive undertaking. Chipseal we know is something that is relatively cheap compared to pavement. There are other products that are in between, in terms of cost. We have to take a look at that.

Of course, the Member’s riding is clearly quite far on the northern end of the Territory. We need to take that into consideration. Our work in terms of financial analysis is not complete yet. Having heard that the Member’s community is anticipating to do some work either this summer or next summer, I think it would certainly help us in terms of economies of scale.

We will commit to sitting down with them right away. Of course, the final issue would be to see how we would pay for it. We haven’t factored in a budget because we don’t know what it is going to cost. We know that chipseal is around $30,000, $40,000, or $50,000 per kilometre and everything else is probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, quite expensive to do, so we need to have a budget figure. We need to know what the

community is doing now and move forward. We will sit down as soon as possible. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, again, I believe that in order to accomplish this, we are going to have to do it as a pilot project. Like you say, it is one of those projects that we have to test out and see exactly how it will be applied and, more importantly, how it will hold up on the Dempster Highway and other roads in the region. I think it is something that we have to look at in light of climate change and other effects we are seeing. I think that this is something that we as government have to seriously consider. I would just like to ask the Minister again, is it possible to come forward with some sort of a pilot project? I know that it is not going to happen this summer. It probably could happen by next summer. Again, we do have to start those discussions. I would like to ask the Minister again if he can possibly get his people to work along with myself and the Hamlet of Fort McPherson and set up a meeting as soon as possible and see if we can get these discussions going anyhow. Thank you.

We certainly can commit to doing that. I think as a government we’re convinced that chipseal is a good way to protect the surface of the road. It’s also a safety mechanism in terms of dust suppressant. We don’t know what it’s going to cost to do it in the Delta. We need to find that out. We don’t know if it’s going to stand up in terms of having it built in that area of the NWT. Those things are going to be taken into consideration. We can’t commit that we’ll do it all this year but we can certainly do the planning, the costing, and try to include it in next year’s budget. We’ll commit to do that and meet with the community as soon as possible.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I think this is a perfect opportunity for the region of the Beaufort-Delta to have this capacity, develop the capacity, and keep it in the region. There are other projects being looked at. I know Inuvik is doing a resurfacing job this summer and there’s the possibility of the extension of the Inuvik airport. There is also work in other airports. I think we have to look at the regional economics of this to see how feasible developing this industry in the Inuvik region is. With the potential of the Mackenzie Highway, this is something that we can look into the future of possibly needing this for more than just the Dempster Highway and other highways in the region, other airports, other infrastructure. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could look at the infrastructure that’s going to be needed to develop this industry in the North, make it a northern-based industry, keep it in the North so that we can do other communities and highways in the Northwest Territories.

As we move forward on trying to develop our roads, reconstruct our roads, we also want to improve the amount of chipseal and hardtop that we have on our infrastructure. We know that by having a long-term plan and commitment that, providing it’s feasible, providing it’s viable, providing it’s something that will be durable enough to put on to the Dempster and into the Delta, this will create opportunity. We know, having looked at the southern end of the Territories where we have been doing it for quite a few years now, we have companies here in Yellowknife and in Hay River that are generating a lot of work from the projects that we have. I’m assuming that the opportunity will open up a business possibility in the Member’s riding or Inuvik once we make the commitment to do the long-term work.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation and it’s about a road situation in his constituency, but my constituents have to drive over the road. I know I’ve talked to the Minister about this before. My constituency ends at the Hay River/Enterprise border. Your constituency starts at the same spot. But just beyond there, on the highway -- and I know your people have gone out and looked at it and you may have gone out and looked at it too -- there is an erosion on the roadside there that literally when you look down it’s a straight down cliff. It’s like the water that must be coming from under the road has actually carved out a gorge going down there. Now, somebody I assume from Transportation put some of that orange snow fence across this gorge. I don’t know if that’s meant to catch the people who go through when the road caves in or if it’s meant to catch boulders that are going down in the erosion. I’m not sure what the snow fence is intended for. Would the Minister tell me, has he seen what I’m talking about?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I haven’t seen what the Member is talking about, but the Member has told me three times now that there is a problem. I think the day after it was brought to our attention we had our people go out to the area that is of concern. There are some issues that have to be dealt with there. I believe we have a plan to remedy the situation, I just don’t have it with me today. I certainly can commit to

providing that information to the Member about the project in my riding.

The Minister mentions that I’ve brought this up three times. He must think I’m nagging him. I would like to know, I know he sent his people out to look at it, but I would like to know if the Minister would commit to having some kind of an engineer or somebody that builds roads look at this. Because I am very serious; the last time that I drove over that little spot and looked down there I was surprised. Even myself, a layperson, I could see that there had been further erosion. What I’m afraid is that there could be something that needs to be X-rayed under the road to see if there is some kind of a cavern developing under there, because it would be a very sad thing if somebody went over that and the road washed out. It could create a very serious injury for a person driving a motor vehicle there. I’m not saying there aren’t engineers in Hay River, but could we get an assessment of what’s causing that and what the remedy is?

That cause for concern has been looked at for a couple of years now. Our people have been monitoring the situation. As the Member brought the issue forward to me last year, I had our officials confirm that there is an issue there. They went to the site again and there are plans being made to remedy the situation. We’ll share that information with the Member and provide the reassurance that it’s not going to collapse or that the testing is done to ensure the safety factor will not be a concern anymore.

This will be my final supplementary. I do know the Minister does drive that road from time to time. Just before he gets to Paradise Gardens, if he could just look down to the right. It’s just before Paradise, but the person who hits that road when it caves in will be going to Paradise. If he could just commit to visually himself look at it so he’s familiar with it, I would really appreciate it.

I’m familiar with where the Paradise...

---Laughter

...the problem is and I will certainly stop and take a look at it. In fact, the next time I’m in the area I will go there with some of our officials and take a look at it personally.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of NTPC. I notified the Minister today of the issues with billing services

in my region when it’s minus 27, minus 23, minus 30 and there’s a disconnection of services to some of the houses by NTPC for billing of about $300 or $400. Is there a policy within NTPC regarding disconnection to houses that the families are not there, they are on duty travel or in the bush and there’s no one there to deal with the billing issue? Is there a policy within NTPC for disconnecting a home at temperatures that are below a certain degree?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Roland.