The Department of Transportation has some well dedicated staff. Maybe they might be overworked, because we got a lot of money from Transportation and the federal government to put projects right across the Northwest Territories. We certainly, in the Sahtu,
could also help with some of these projects here, with the transportation, the design, the work. We can also even take some of this project management. They did a wonderful job in Colville Lake. The department and the community put together a good team and they put the airport there. It can get done. I think the department needs to give a little more credit to the communities in the regions for taking over some of these projects, and it can get done probably under budget or just right on budget. It can get done.
I ask the Minister and the deputy minister of the Department of Transportation, we could do this work and get it done in the Sahtu, and put together these projects on time and on budget. For example, we have some work on the airports and the winter roads, and it’s going to get busy this winter. If the Explorers Group tells us, you know, when they’re going to spend maybe over $200 million. I’m not too sure if that’s a correct number, but that’s what they say they’re going to do. We need to get ready for that and we can have a temporary office set up in the Sahtu with some of their instructors, that could look after the bridging, work on the airport, other than getting approval out of Fort Simpson or out of Inuvik. We just don’t have that mechanism. We have to make that phone call to Fort Simpson or to Inuvik to get work done in the Sahtu. Those 1950s, ‘60s days are over. It’s 2012. Why can’t we get the approval done in the Sahtu? I don’t understand. Is it really that hard to let that type of authority go in the department?
The big boys are playing in the Sahtu for oil and gas, so we need to play along with them to get things done. I ask again, the Department of Transportation, you have some very good people working in your department. We have some real good people working in the Sahtu. Those roads are going to need to be upgraded and I see that they’re putting signs on the winter road. I’ve driven the winter road from here to Wrigley, Deline, to Fort Good Hope and the Wells. I’ve been on those winter roads. There’s a lot of improvement. The signs are no longer tagged onto a tree. They’re actually posted now on the road. That’s showing me that there is some attention and there’s improvement.
We have a really good ice paving program. It’s good that you’re doing some good work there. What we see in the amount of activity going on there on our winter roads, and the oil companies are coming up and our people are seeing this. The other areas like Good Hope to Norman Wells, the road is pretty rough. This is our transportation for the three months. This summer we got the Mackenzie Valley River. That’s our transportation right now. I’m talking now just on the winter roads, and I’d like to see this department step up to the plate and put an office, a position, even temporarily, in the Sahtu, so we can have some autonomy and some authority,
instead of making that phone call to Simpson or to Inuvik to say can we do this, can we do that. We’ve got to have that. That’s what I’m asking in a forceful way to the department on these projects here, because I’m seeing these bridges certainly need to be fixed and it’s not getting done for the reasons that the Minister or the deputy minister has said to us in the House here. That’s all I have to say on page 13.