Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Department of Transportation has done a lot of work in the Territories. I want to speak on the initiatives that were done in my region and I want to say that the airport infrastructure that happened in my region were very beneficial to my constituents, to the airline companies. We were happy that the department and the Fort Good Hope community came to a satisfactory solution that helped them extend the runway a little longer. People in Fort Good Hope were very pleased that this has taken place, because of their joint ventures with NorthWright in terms of the airline safety and airline passenger travel.

As you know, the Sahtu has about two months of winter road season where it’s very helpful for big families to take their children out on holidays, even though it’s to Hay River or Yellowknife or just to get out and do shopping and go back home. Even though it means taking some time off school. It’s very costly for them. Instead of flying out there, they look forward to the opening of the winter roads, which I want to make a few comments on.

Firstly, the quality of our winter roads is getting better and better. It’s hard for me to say this because it gets a little smoother now. I think we’re moving past the goat road stages of winter roads and the department has taken some pride and certainly it’s the contractors that are out there day in and day out that have put some pride into their work. They’ve actually done a really good job on our roads. Certainly there’s work that they still need to continue to straighten out the winter roads or cut down the hills or corners. That’s to be expected. We’re getting there. There are dollars going into these initiatives.

You’re working with the contractors. That’s what I wanted to say to the department. You’re working with the beneficiaries. You’re working with the local contractors in that area, in that community. It makes a whole lot of difference when you do a couple months of work there. After the two months of the winter road season you have eight months when it’s very quiet. The machines are sitting in the yard. Still the contractors have to pay for the equipment, they have to make their monthly payments. Sometimes it gets a little encouraging to see that this department is doing its darnedest to keep the road in our communities with the cost, because costs are quite expensive doing business in the Sahtu. Sometimes it’s just as easy to get outside contractors coming in with the lower price. There’s a price to pay for that. There’s me talking about these issues in the House here. I think that’s a give and take on both sides.

I’m really hoping the Minister can wrap up all the project description reports that he signed with the Aboriginal groups down the Mackenzie Valley and that we can have a good report. I’m pleased to see that Wrigley to Tuk highway is still a priority for the department and that the highway from Tuk to Inuvik is actually in another stage just ahead of us in the Sahtu. Hoping that there is something going on between the federal government in March to look at the Mackenzie Valley Highway and that they put some dollars towards this project.

I do want to say that hopefully very shortly that bridge gets done, finished, and the focus is off that bridge and put that focus on another bridge in the North.

I look forward to having some discussions on the details of it. I do want to say that the community of Deline has raised several concerns through e-mail with me on the ice crossing at Great Bear Lake and that the Minister’s opening statement had a couple hundred thousand dollars in the acceleration of the ice crossing in Tulita and on Great Bear Lake. I believe last week the weight restrictions were up in Deline and people are now looking forward to getting some of their resupplies into the community, however, that still causes some concerns for the community having their winter ice road crossing open a little sooner and they are looking at alternative routing and hopefully the Minister would be open to some discussions on that. Probably the new Assembly will have to look at that type of discussion, because that will require more dollars. I want to raise that, I want to raise that right in my opening comments.

I want to ask the Minister, in terms of updating in the National Highway Transportation Route, we have done that already with the federal government. Like I said, our winter roads are becoming a lot better, but it is still a little rough around some corners, but then that will only get better as we continue to work on some of the areas that need concentration, such as some of the hills that need to be cut down. That requires dollars and that requires emphasis and focus on governments to put on the Mackenzie Valley Road.

There were some safety issues and I think the Minister responded by having a few more signs on the road that I saw this year. They are pretty damn good in there, might I say, because they are in proper instalments now, not on trees with snare wire hanging from the trees and the signs. The Minister has put some attention to our winter roads by properly installing some good posts and the signs are there. I am glad to say that, Mr. Chairman, the Sahtu, in closing, really depend on these winter roads. There are families, there are old people that travel on them from community to community. Safety is number one, because our winter roads are pretty good, I don’t know,

somehow we started an ice paving program, it makes it even better. The vehicles are going a little bit faster now, so we have to ensure that the safety of our people are more informed and that educational programs are needed in our region. Sometimes we have these truckers that come from the South that really don’t understand truck driving and sometimes they need to be told that this is a winter road and that it is used a lot by people between the communities, and they need to know that they are in the Sahtu where the roads are not quite up to their standards as in the South. So I want to say thank you to the Minister.