Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Neudorf.

Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The deputy minister and the Minister are correct that some of our airports are going to become more valuable space lots and that. I do look forward to their advanced airport commercial land development to see where things are at.

I want to ask the Minister, at one time I know that the fee structures within our airport were not fair and consistent. I know the department is doing some work to look at where fairness and consistency right across the board on our fee structures and landing fees. Sometimes I think we could be making more money. I know my constituent in Norman Wells, North-Wright Aviation, has a huge number of terminal fees and leases that we get off the Department of Transportation. I want to know if the department is going to review their fee structures and be fair across the board and see if we need to increase, or are we losing the revenue out of here.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. During my opening comments I alluded to the fact that we are going through a review of fees and the structure of those to ensure their fairness and if they are in fact at market rates. We will continue to move that effort along. When we do have some detailed information on what we want to propose, we will certainly be coming back to the Members with those fee schedules and what we anticipate or want to see happen. That should be happening. I would imagine by the end of this year I would hope we could have that work concluded. We could have the information in front of Members so that we could make a decision together on how we move forward with the fee structure.

I have three follow-up questions so I will ask them all at once here. The first one I asked earlier about the airport position in the Sahtu. We have it now. Our office is up in Inuvik. I’d like to certainly see where it would be more advantageous to have it in the Sahtu. I hope the Minister would give some consideration and thoughts to future

business plans or something within the next couple months to say yes, that’s something that we can look at. Mr. Minister did give me a little response, but I’m going to ask in this area.

The second one is that the community airports, our airports are pretty busy in Norman Wells and maybe in our smaller communities also. Because of the amount of activity that’s going to happen with the oil and gas, when you start looking at how we start planning for emergency response teams at the community level where the Department of MACA and DOT and Health and Social Services, the RCMP, everybody gets together and looks at how do we respond to emergency situations. We start looking at those types of things. I’d like to see where there’s a little more concentration in those areas and that Norman Wells also gets looked at from a tourism point of view where we would like to see also planes coming into that airport and that the department looks at facilitating some type of process.

My last question. I do want to thank the Minister for that place that we have in Norman Wells where the elders can sit, but I also ask the Minister if he would look at the grizzly bear that’s standing in the airport terminal. There’s a statue of a grizzly bear that one of the fingers is broken off. I would ask if they would look at that and fix that, ITI or Environment, that statue. Get that statue fixed. It’s disrespectful to that grizzly bear. People walking by and...(inaudible)...I don’t like that. I ask if he would fix that for us, please.

We wouldn’t want to disrespect a grizzly. That would be trouble. We’re not sure if that is our bear or maybe ITI’s bear or another government department’s bear, but we will find out and we will get that remedied.

On the emergency planning, that is part of the regulatory requirements when we’re operating an airport. We meet with the RCMP and other emergency agencies and there are full-blown exercises that take place in a variety of communities across the Northwest Territories. Norman Wells is one of them where they go through a full exercise on emergency preparedness and response.

Also, the Member talked about the increased activity at Norman Wells. The activity in a six-month period tripled at the Norman Wells Airport in the area of takeoffs and landings. That’s something we certainly, from an operational perspective, have to keep an eye on and we will continue to keep an eye on that and ensure we have the resources there that are going to address that increased activity in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Next on my list, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had one question in regard to the incident that happened in Inuvik this year. We had that windstorm that blew the roof off the airport. I was just wondering if the department allocated funds for the repair of that roof and whether or not there was a study into the structure of the building to see if there was any more damage that was done from that storm. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s questions. Yes, there was some damage sustained to the Inuvik terminal building this past winter. Public Works and Services was responsible for the repairs that took place to the terminal building. They ran in the order of about $100,000 on the repairs to the terminal building. There is no long-term structural damage to the building itself. It didn’t require repairs and it won’t require any further repairs. However, that building is getting older and at some point in time we will need to look at replacing the air terminal building in Inuvik. Thank you.

Does the Minister know how old the building is in terms of building years and when it does need to be replaced in terms of our policies within our government? Thank you.

Are you looking for a capital project, Mr. Moses? Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe the original structure there dates back to when Inuvik was first moved over, the late ‘60s. There were a number of additions added to the existing structure to get us to where we’re at today, but certainly the main component of that building dates back to the late ‘60s. Thank you.

No further questions, Madam Chair, but duly noted on the structure of the building, and thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Next on my list, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to begin, I have one of the communities in my riding, which is Tsiigehtchic, who I’m sure would really enjoy having an airport. They’re one of the very few communities in the Northwest Territories that don’t have that luxury. Hopefully, within the next couple of years we could see that in the budget.

We do have the community of Aklavik who is hoping to, in the near future, have an extension on the airport, on the airstrip there. I know it was planned, I think, a year or two ago. I’m not sure what happened there, but I’m hoping that we could get that into the budget, hopefully, in the fall. I know it was done in Fort McPherson. I know the

community of Aklavik would really appreciate if we could extend that airstrip.

Also, in Inuvik this past winter we’ve had a number of planes that couldn’t land due to the conditions of the airstrip. I’m hoping that we could increase the funding going to that community so we could ensure the safety of our residents. One thing I’ve noticed while flying during the winter is we don’t have any current technology that does de-icing of the planes. It’s mostly done manually. Within the near future here I’d like to see us getting with 2012 here and getting the proper technology to de-ice our planes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There was a runway length study conducted a number of years ago in the Northwest Territories on runway lengths and communities were looked at. The community of Aklavik was not deemed to be a priority at that time for a runway extension. If the Member feels that maybe that’s changed or something’s changed in the community that would make that more of a priority, we would be willing to listen to that.

On the other item on de-icing and the equipment for de-icing, that’s an air carrier issue, so if the air carrier is providing service into a community, it’s their responsibility to provide the de-icing equipment for their equipment on the ground in the various communities around the territory. Thank you.

The other concern was the condition of the actual landing in the community of Inuvik. Thank you.

Mr. Neudorf, please.

Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Minister Ramsay.