Thank you, Madam Chair. My comments would reflect around the Mackenzie Valley winter road, and the airports in my community, and some of the support equipment that needs to be looked at within the Department of Transportation to support the operations of our small airports and our winter road.
I want to thank the department at this time for their flexibility and support in the construction, the final steps of the Colville Lake new airport. The people there are very happy that the department was opening up to have most of the people and their equipment in Colville Lake working on the airport. It does a lot of good when you see high employment in Colville Lake. Actually, they had a pretty good crew there. They’re very open. I want to ask the Minister when they put together infrastructure such
as the one like Colville Lake, they also need to put in support infrastructure such as the terminal. Right now you go to Colville Lake, you land at the airport, and there’s no place to walk into. It’s just right open. You have very good scenery, but it’s cold. I’m hoping that the Colville Lake Airport will look at a shelter but also someplace where they would park their equipment, like a garage at their terminal for their equipment.
I spoke about Deline’s need for a snow blower. I will continue to raise it until Deline does see a snow blower at that community. I understand that today they are contracting a grader to do the runway. The graders are fine. The graders also do damage to the runways. They have been looking for a snow blower for some time with the amount of usage of that airport, so I’m going to continue to push for that community to look at a time when they can get a snow blower.
One of the things that the community of Deline have asked for in airports is the extension of that runway. I know it was extended. They want to land larger aircraft and I believe that Deline will be busy in the future. They are willing to work with the department. I wanted to say that the department’s not new to this initiative. They have made some concessions where the previous extension on the runway was supported through Deline through the gravelling material. They are looking for a runway extension in Deline.
The highways in the Mackenzie Valley winter road, as the Minister and the previous Minister have noted, a number of bridges have been put in to support the Mackenzie Valley Highway. However, there is a bridge in the Norman Wells section between Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope and the department’s well aware of the bridge. It’s at Oscar Creek and has been sitting there for a bit. It’s out of alignment. It causes some hiccups and difficulties for the department, this bridge here. It’s quite a scene when you drive on the winter road and come around a corner and you see a bridge sitting there all by itself not being used, and you kind of wonder what the heck’s going on here, why this bridge is not being used. There are a lot of stories around Norman Wells about this bridge. I look forward to when the government can put this bridge into use and get it in service.
There were two bridges that we were working on last year. The Prohibition Creek Bridge and the Four Mile Creek Bridge. I look forward to the Minister’s response on updates as to when those bridges will be fixed and in use.
The big one I want to talk about is the Bear River Bridge. This is the key infrastructure, especially now that the oil and gas companies have expressed interest in the Tulita/Norman Wells area for oil and gas exploration. This bridge here will be a support to exploration, opening winter roads
quicker, not putting people’s lives in jeopardy by continuing to use the winter ice road. Climate change, as my colleague Mr. Bromley has talked lots about, the impacts of climate change we are now seeing the effects on our winter road. The Bear River Bridge is something that I continue to support and the people in the Sahtu support to have that bridge up and on the books so that we can start to put that infrastructure in place.
I also look to the department on bringing types of infrastructure to our airports in Tulita for a garage. We have an old garage that right now I believe is contracted to the hamlet for the winter upgrades. They have the old federal government garages that now belong to the Hamlet of Tulita, no different than the garages that were used at the Yellowknife Airport. Now they have a brand new garage up at the Yellowknife Airport. We need that type of support also in our smaller communities.
I look for those types of updates. The Minister is pretty busy with all the other projects going on. However, these are the needs of the Sahtu people. I look forward to a discussion on the additional dollars that the Minister will be seeking for the Deh Cho Bridge and I look forward to some of his responses to my questions specifically on the Deh Cho Bridge.
I wanted to say these are my comments on the Department of Transportation.