Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank Mr. Yakeleya for bringing the concerns from the Sahtu forward. I made a list. I’ll try to go through them, Mr. Yakeleya, and if I miss anything, perhaps Mr. Neudorf can fill in the gaps if I missed a comment of yours.
Going back to the beginning with Colville Lake, we are committed to working with the community there in Colville Lake to get a passenger shelter up and running. I know the new airport is a little further away so that’s important that that happen. In terms of a garage or a structure being built for equipment, and I guess the same answer would apply to Tulita, DOT contracts the equipment from the community. It’s community equipment and they would have to look at housing that equipment. We haven’t got any plans currently to build a garage at either Colville Lake or Tulita.
The next issue the Member had was runway extensions in Deline. Going back to a 2007 study, I had indicated that the runway length in the community of Deline was adequate. Again, we’re committed to continue to work with the communities in the Sahtu and if there are proposals put forward – I believe we did an extension in Fort Good Hope where the community was involved in that
extension – then that’s something we could take under consideration as well.
The Member also spoke about the Oscar Creek Bridge. There’s currently a study underway to engage engineers to see what the best utilization of that bridge could be. We’re looking forward to at some point in time utilizing that piece of infrastructure that’s there at Oscar Creek.
I think that covered the issues the Member had. Oh, the snow blower. The issue the Member had with the snow blower. Currently we deploy graders at the airport. A grader is multifunctional, as Members know, whereas a snow blower is an expensive piece of equipment that is one dimensional; it blows snow. So having graders there and the functionality of the graders is a better fit for the department.
Also the Bear River Bridge. I know this is a topic that’s of great interest to the Member and to the people of Tulita and the Sahtu. Obviously we’re going to be challenged with funding to carry out the work that we would like to see completed. I think going forward, with the level of activity in the Sahtu region, what is going to be happening there in the next few years in terms of seismic work and drilling programs, I think there will be more of an emphasis to get key pieces of infrastructure like the Bear River Bridge put into place. Obviously the completion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway is something that’s very important and the Bear River Bridge is a key piece of the completion of that highway project.
I certainly look forward to working with the Member over the coming years to ensure that the Sahtu region has their concerns answered.