I thank the Member for his comments and his concerns. On the existing transportation system specific to highways here in the Northwest Territories, I beg to differ with some of what the Member is saying. I think we’ve done a lot to improve the highway system here in the Northwest Territories. We’re going to be opening the Deh Cho Bridge, a $202 million project, near Fort Providence in the coming weeks. As I mentioned to Member Yakeleya, we’ve spent $60 million over the past 10 years on putting permanent bridges in the Mackenzie Valley in anticipation of the Mackenzie Valley Highway.
We are doing the best we can to balance the approach to looking at new highways and maintaining the ones we have currently. I know the Member is concerned about the Detah road, and I don’t want anybody to think we’ve abandoned that project, but if you look around the territory, I mean, we don’t have the capital dollars. We have to do things incrementally. All you have to do is look at Highway No. 7, look at Highway No. 5, look at any of the highways, really, in the Northwest Territories and you can see that incremental approach. If you look at our capital plan, we just don’t have the funding to put it all in at one time.
In the situation with the Detah road, as soon as we can identify more funding, that will be completed. I’ve mentioned this a number of times: We’re very hopeful that the federal government is going to come forward with a new infrastructure plan in 2014, which will enable us to get some more funding to address areas like the Detah road and other highways around the Northwest Territories that need that type of investment. We’re very cognizant of the situation on the Detah road, but the reality is we need to find more funding. We’ve got a number of competing interests around the territory and when we do find some more funding, certainly, the completion of that project is right there.