Thank you, Madam Chair. I have two points I would like to raise with the Department of Transportation. The first one involves an activity of your department that includes destruction of migratory birds and their habitat, which is illegal against the International Migratory Bird Treaty that Canada has signed with the United States. I think that is well known by the department. The Environment Canada I believe has tried working with standards for provinces and territories on when they should do right-of-way clearing to avoid the destruction of migratory birds and their habitat. It is a seasonal habitat so it is not so much they can’t do that as much as when they do it.
I have constituents who volunteer their expertise as part of a North American-wide network of breeding birds surveys that have documented the decline, the amazing decline of songbirds in Canada and boreal forest birds included. They do these in the same areas and the same dates year to year to year. Unfortunately, when they were doing last year along the Ingraham Trail, Highway No. 4, they did the surveys, and on their return they watched the very habitat they just surveyed and documented, actual nests and birds being destroyed, mowed and mulched. That was raised with the department. The department said yes, that is a legitimate concern. They would try and do a better job of that.
I see in the proposed budget for this year the Department of Transportation has dollars identified for contract for that work again. This is an interim budget to cover April, May and June, which just happens to be the peak of the migratory birds’ breeding season in this area. I am aware of no cost to delay that work until August or September. I would ask the department is there a plan to delay that work. I know some contracts are listed in this quarter-year’s budget because they will go further on in the year, but this contract should not be let during the peak of the breeding season. It is illegal. I would ask that I get some assurance that that will not be done.
The second aspect, I had a meeting last night with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation Council and with respect of the Detah road, they are not aware of the current status of funding on that project. I realize it is a capital item, but my understanding is that we are looking for support for that project. In the meantime there is probably a considerable amount of work that could be done under operations, such as clearing and so on, working with the Mine Training Society and so on. Can I expect that has been done in the past two or three years? Can I expect that this budget will include
some support for that type of work during first quarter of 2012-13? Thank you.