Thank you. That’s the crux of the issue, of course. I’m five years into it, starting into my sixth year, and this has been an issue that whole time. Obviously, as Niven Lake develops, the traffic increases and so on. So I do appreciate and I hope we can put a time frame to it soon, and at least with the discussions and get the partnership going. I know the city has expressed interest, but somebody has got to take the lead on it. So I guess it’s our highway.
My next topic is the Inuvik-Tuk highway. I, obviously, am concerned that again it’s not listed here. We seem to be authorizing this project through rather random supps as we have done this year to some degree and intend to do to a further degree, perhaps. Apparently for ‘13-14 as well. Not sort of the normal course of business. I do realize that we are struggling to get the environmental assessment completed and whatnot, and a final decision made. We’re spending very significant dollars in light of other serious infrastructure demands, including health infrastructure, other highway infrastructure and so on. These are very serious trade-offs that we’re making.
I have mentioned some of the challenges, and I know the department is probably aware of many more challenges than I am, but climate change is the area of concern that I’ve been bringing to the
table and particularly in light of Highway No. 3, but also in light of the location and the high water content in the area compared to any of our other highways, except possibly Highway No. 3 which goes through a high-density pothole region and so on.
Could I just ask what degree of warming is the highway being planned for? I know that the Minister has mentioned the gravel investigations have been to prepare for 50 years of maintenance as well as construction. Obviously, that’s relevant for climate change impacts. Also, I’m interested in what changes in precipitation have been considered in the environmental work that’s been done to date. Again, there are significant, but less confident predictions in changes there. Generally increases in precip, but the lower confidence for precipitation means that there is going to be an increase, but it may be 10 percent or it may be 1,000 percent, and of course, Nahanni Butte can tell you all about that. So I’m interested in what degree of warming and what degree of change in precipitation in that environment the department is planning on. Thank you.