Mr. Chairman, I can assure Members that I know there are folks out there and the Member wanted to bring some witnesses, but the highway is safe. Highway No. 3 is safe. If you look at the collision rates between 1993 and 2012, collision rates per million vehicles have gone down over half in terms of the volume of collisions on Highway No. 3. I think that means that our highways are safe. We have statistics to back up the fact that there aren’t as many collisions on that road as there were in the ‘90s and that number has been steadily coming down.
The Member seems to… I don’t know if something is not quite connecting, but we had $200 million put forward by the federal government earmarked for the specific project the Member talks about, the Inuvik-Tuk highway. We don’t have the ability to take any of that $200 million and move it around to Highway No. 3, 8, 7, 6, 1 or 4. You name the highway. We can’t take that money and move it around. That’s not something we’re able to do.
We’re in the process of this funding with the federal government that’s going to see $200 million flow through to the GNWT so that we can build the Inuvik-Tuk highway. That’s the status of that $200 million and we don’t have the ability to move it around.
I think maybe some Members are under the assumption that we can just take some of that money and move it around. That can’t happen. That’s why you see the budget the way it is and we are going to carry forward.
I have to say this, as well, Mr. Chairman. This is the first year in probably the last eight or nine years – and I’ve been here almost 10 years now – that we haven’t had a federal funding program available to us to invest in our highway system in the Northwest Territories. We’ve had that opportunity in the past. This year we just don’t have anything to avail ourselves of when it comes to federal funding programs. It’s kind of that grey zone between us getting new funding programs and the other ones lapsing. So we’re stuck right in the middle, and this capital budget that you see in front of you for Transportation is a reflection of the fact that we just can’t rely on that federal funding this year. We have some, and yes, it’s earmarked for the Inuvik-Tuk highway. That’s the stark reality that we’re living in today.
But we’re hoping to change that with Corridors for Canada III, a $600 million investment in
transportation infrastructure across the Northwest Territories. Thank you.