Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Members who have brought this motion forward, Mr. Nadli and the MLA for Range Lake.

This past winter Minister Ramsay and myself travelled over 702 kilometres on the Mackenzie Valley winter road. Mr. Ramsay and I also took turns driving on the Mackenzie Valley winter road, and there were several close calls. Even though the vehicles were going 50 kilometres an hour, the roads were so narrow and so bumpy, and not quite up to the standards where we'd like to see our roads up in the Mackenzie Valley.

I'd like to see if there is some way that this government can put together a comprehensive regional type of emergency rescue protocol. Even the Town of Norman Wells, in the last government, met with me and said we need to know who are the first responders, what's the protocol. Is it the RCMP? Is it the church? Is it the town? Right now there's no territorial coordination to help us with these jurisdictions and authorities.

When we were driving the winter road, Mr. Ramsay and I, there were three or four inches in between the space of a semi-truck and our vehicle, and there was hardly any space to pull aside. I also heard that the communities in my region have said that they've been hit by some of the vehicles. Thank God there have been no serious accidents on our winter roads. We had one in Wrigley that the vehicle went off the road and they had to get some aircraft and helicopters to help this person.

I will be supporting this motion. I look forward to seeing how the Minister can work with the different regions on different flexibilities and see where it makes sense in the Sahtu, what makes sense up in the Beaufort-Delta, Nunakput or down in this area. Everybody has different needs at different times, and certainly, for us, seeing 1,600 to 1,700 trucks coming up in a short period of time. Plus, that's the opportunity for people in the Sahtu to come out to Hay River or Yellowknife or Edmonton, do their shopping, take their children out. They use that road, also, we just need to be a little more coordinated. We know once you get into the communities if there's an accident, who's ready, who's going to go, who to call right now. It's sort of, okay, we have to do this and so let's organize ourselves. I look forward to some leadership, direction and input from these committees as to what we can do.