Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We want that section of the highway to be a glorious piece of highway to drive. We have been working hard to accomplish that, given the age of the highway and the amount of work that’s going to be required to reconstruct that whole section of highway on both Highway No. 1 and Highway No. 7. I think we’ve been working quite well with the Member in his riding.

Highway No. 7 has seen the investment, or will see it by the end of this summer, of about $12 million that has been dedicated to that section of road. However, that’s far short of what it needs to be reconstructed. We’re probably a little over $100 million to do that whole section.

This road was not designed for high traffic volumes. It was not designed to handle the industry resource development that’s going to be coming forward in the next while. We have to always keep that in mind. As we construct portions of roads, we’re seeing failures in others, as water is a huge issue. Drainage is a problem. We have done a design and review of Highway No. 7. We’ve identified the weak spots on Highway No. 1 from Providence junction towards Simpson. There are six sections that need attention and we’ll continue to work towards that.

It was disappointing for myself, and I think everybody that travels that road, to hear that some of the chipseal that was done this past year and the year before failed. We have to address the causes. We don’t want to chipseal it until we are completely satisfied that the road base is solid and strengthened and we deal with the drainage issues.

There is a lot of work to be done. We continue to move forward. We think there is enough investment for this coming year and it’s going to require the next government to continue moving that forward.