Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank the Minister. I would like to thank our witnesses here today and if I could get the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses out of the Chamber, thank you.

Committee, do we agree to proceed with consideration of the Department of Transportation?

Thank you, committee. There is a section 9 in your binders. We will now go to the Minister of Transportation to see if he has any witnesses he would like to bring into the Chamber.

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. I will get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses into the House.

Mr. Ramsay, would you like to introduce your witnesses to the House, please?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my left I have Russ Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation. To my right I have Ms. Jayleen Robertson, director of environment and communications with DOT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Ms. Robertson, Mr. Neudorf, welcome to the House today. Committee, we will defer 9-2. We will come back to it at the end. I would like to turn your attention to 9-4, Transportation, activity

summary, airports, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $3.075 million. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wonder if I can get an update on the situation in the Sahtu, given all the activity there. I don’t see much in the Sahtu other than a tractor for the Norman Wells Airport. I’m just wondering what the status is. Is the Minister anticipating getting… The word “prepared” comes to mind. If we could get an update on what the strategy is. I understand there is something like $630 million worth of activity in the Sahtu this year associated with the oil development alone and I’m just wondering what sorts of pressures we are experiencing and if there’s anything coming up there.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for the question. Certainly there’s a lot of activity taking place in the Sahtu. I think the number for economic spent this coming winter season is somewhere around $90 million, I do believe.

A lot of the goods that end up there do go through the airport, but the Norman Wells Airport is a regional airport. It’s a hub. It is equipped to handle the increased activity. Going forward, we’ve identified some funding through the Corridors for Canada III proposal to the federal government, where we would see an increased opportunity through commercial space at the Norman Wells Airport to help with the development that’s taking place in the Sahtu.

We are convinced that the Norman Wells Airport is in good position to handle the traffic. Thank you.

I was talking about the Sahtu generally, of course. I sort of agree that we expect the regional hub to be good for the short term here. It’s the smaller airports that I’m wondering about and if they’re seeing any kind of magnitude-increase in activity. I know Tulita, a beautiful spot, but it’s a pretty modest facility there and so on.

We do appreciate there will be impacts on the smaller communities in the Sahtu as well. In the past, we have had a runway length study that we did. We are in the process of updating that study so we can ensure that runway lengths are going to fit the required need in the area as development continues to move forward.

In the past we have worked with the communities. Fort Good Hope is an example; I’m working with the community to see the runway extended there. I know there is some interest from Deline and I had the chief in my office this morning, talking about that again. So we’re anxious to see if there are opportunities to partner with people and get some

of these things done. Again, work continues in that area. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s comments. I know he’s aware that we want to be doing these things before there is a consequence of not having these facilities there. So being in front of this stuff would be good.

I’d like to turn briefly to Inuvik and the example of some of the climate change impacts that are being experienced there with the runway. Obviously, I don’t see it in this budget. Presumably it will be handled some other way here soon. Do we know what the total cost of that issue is? Are there any other instants like that that are happening in our airport infrastructure that the Minister could bring us up to date on? Thank you.

Two things with the Inuvik Airport, through the Corridors for Canada III proposal we are looking at a new terminal building for Inuvik. That’s a very positive move forward. Also the Member has talked about climate change and the impact it’s had on the runway in Inuvik, and we just recently experienced a dip in the runway and we had to provide an immediate fix. That immediate fix cost about $600,000. It will be a total repair of about $2.5 million when all is said and done on that runway.

We continue to have discussions with the Department of National Defence on extending the runway in Inuvik and hopefully we can see the day where the federal government is going to put a substantial investment in the Inuvik Airport in a runway extension. So we continue to have those discussions with the federal government as well. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. So that’s the only airport that this has expressed itself in that way this year, I’m assuming, unless there’s any further update. What are we doing to try to assess airports for vulnerability to this sort of thing, so that we can again try to get ahead of the game? It comes to mind now that Hay River had an issue, and again there’s a clear trend development here and we know it’s going to get worse. What are we doing to try to get ahead of this and what sorts of costs are we seeing now?

No doubt, we are at the forefront of the climate change and the impact climate change is having here in the North. We have had the experience in Inuvik. We have had a similar experience and it’s an ongoing issue in Hay River. I know the Members from Hay River would know that. We’ve also had a small dip in one of the runways here in Yellowknife that we’ve had to remedy as well.

As far as work, the Northwest Territories, given our location and fact that we are on the front line of climate change, we can have a lot of impact in

helping others deal with it, as well, and taking a look at how we can mitigate the impacts of climate change. I know our airport folks are doing a lot of work in that regard, trying to ensure the runways can stand up given this impact of climate change and maybe help others dealing with similar situations. Thank you.

Thanks for that information. Maybe I could just hear what the costs were this year so far for the Hay River and Yellowknife situations. On a looking-forward basis, when our school roofs started to collapse because of snow loads, unexpected snow loads, we adapted by changing the standards that construction had to meet for the roofs of schools. Are there those sorts of adaptations happening in the construction of runways to deal with these eventualities or probabilities? Thank you.

The issues with the runways have been ongoing for a number of years. Again, we are trying our best to mitigate those issues with our runways, and they are O and M. We treat them as O and M. In the case of Hay River, the repairs to the Hay River runway, I think we were in the magnitude of $2 million, maybe just slightly over $2 million. As I mentioned earlier, the complete fix for the dip in the Inuvik runway at the end of the day is going to be about $2.5 million. Thank you.

Thanks for that information. The Yellowknife one sounds like… Is that in the past? Are we changing our standards in runway construction in recognition of the new challenges?

Yellowknife experienced these difficulties, I believe, about eight to 10 years ago and it was fixed using some insulation and other materials under the runway and we haven’t experienced problems since that was fixed. Again, that’s going back almost a decade.

Again, not to be overly persistent, I am just wondering if we’ve changed our standards of construction with runways and airport landing strips. Thank you.