Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Fort Providence Airport is one of the airports that DOT owns and operates. It’s maintained by our local highways staff. We have a highway camp in Fort Providence. There is no scheduled traffic into the airport, so it’s used for a charter basis. Fort Providence, of course, has a great all-weather road highway access. It’s there for whatever use there might be of the public. If there were ideas to expand, change that service, I think DOT would be willing to talk to whoever about any potential changes to the service. But just because Fort Providence is on the all-weather road, a relatively short distance to Yellowknife and to Hay River, it’s a smaller airport that we operate because of those things. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Debates of March 3rd, 2014
This is page numbers 4075 – 4134 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going.
Topics
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Russ Neudorf
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The airport road or road from Inuvik Airport into Inuvik is something that we’ve looked at. It’s something that we are looking at in Corridors for Canada III as part of the work that’s needed on the Dempster. At the time we were putting in Corridors for Canada, we had considered that portion of the road as part of the Dempster and the repairs that are needed. That is something we are looking at within that whole area of Corridors for Canada III. The airport sinkhole is something that we are aware of and definitely something that we will be repairing.
The Member talked a bit about ferry services. Again, I just want to reiterate that the Merv Hardie ferry in Fort Providence, a bigger ferry, mind you, would not have operated any more efficiently with the operation that we are trying to run all season at Tsiigehtchic. Definitely we have no issue with communicating with our federal counterparts in having that discussion with Coast Guard if Coast Guard is going to operate in Inuvik. Again, it would be a federal government decision, but if the Members wish for us to have that discussion, it would not hurt for us to have that discussion to see if that’s something they would contemplate.
I’m going to again go back to the deputy minister to talk a bit about the Green Light, as brought forward by Member Bromley. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Russ Neudorf
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Green Light is our strategy document for our environmental practices to talk about how DOT would like to operate from an environmental perspective. It is three or four years out now. We have not gone and done a retrospective on it, but in the next while, up to the five-year anniversary of the document, it would be a good idea to take a step back and refresh it to make sure that…report on how we’ve done in meeting the objectives in it and to relook at what we might want to do going forward.
I’d also note that, as part of our multi-modal Transportation Strategy work that we’ll undertake this coming year that Green Light will be incorporated as part of that work as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, on the management costs on highways and also safety regulations, Member Bromley was asking the reason why those two costs went down over the years. I’m just going to have the deputy minister do a response on those two areas.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Russ Neudorf
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Highways management side, the budgets were down from ‘13-14 mains to the current year of the proposed ‘14-15 mains mainly due to financial shared services and transferring some of the responsibilities from ourselves to the Department of Finance and then also a small adjustment related to procurement shared services.
In road licensing and safety, on safety and regulations there were a number of budgets, some increases due to Collective Agreement, increased
cost due to the contract with Canadian Bank Note, the contractor that produces our drivers’ licence.
There was an internal budget realignment to move $150,000 from this budget used to pay the 24-7 contracting services from total permit services fees from safety and regulations program to the motor carrier services budget, so it was just an internal realignment.
There is also a decrease adjustment due to financial shared services and then, finally, there was an adjustment internal to DOT to centralize some software licensing on our Motor Vehicle Information System new DRIVE system centralizing just to have better management of the various software licences for that software. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, Member Bromley asked how long the contract was in place for. I had indicated earlier, but just a quick repeat, it is a 35-year deal at $200,000 per year with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and that was to provide some sort of tourism development, economic development or any type of thing that may have been lost with the fact that when the ferry was there, the traffic was stopping in Providence, coming and going. Now that the people know that they don’t have to, unless they need to gas up, many of them go straight through on their way south on their way to other communities in the south of the NWT. This money was put in there, too, for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation to develop something in that area to try to attract people still into Providence that is being lost as a result of the bridge.
The MLA also spoke a bit about looking at a railroad for the Transportation Strategy. I recall from a couple of years ago the Member asking the department to take a look at this as part of the overall Transportation Strategy. I don’t believe we have done that yet. That is next year. Again, we would look at that in the multi-modal Transportation Strategy that we would take a look at the railroad, as well, the feasibility of that being part of the transportation system.
The next one I have is the Inuvik to Tuk highway cost. Again, this was Member Hawkins asking about maybe what type of cost controls are in place and why not spread the costs over a longer period of time. Again, we looked at trying to build the road as quickly as possible. We need to get that highway built. We looked at that highway and determined that considering that the highway could only be constructed during small periods during the year, that there is no summer construction because of access to that area then in the summertime they will be working on the parts of the road that they
have already constructed. This is a five-year project and we thought that was a fairly extended time, as well, and was as quickly as we could do it. Money flows in from the federal government. As the Members know, about two-thirds of the cost is coming from the federal government and they have cash flowed it over five years. We have matched our share into that same time period and we are hoping that the road can be built in five years. The thought of slowing it down and spreading it out over a longer period for employment purposes is something that was not a priority for us. Our priority was to build the road.
The YK Airport was brought up earlier by a Member. We have the program review office looking at our governance options. We’ve done several reviews of the airport and feasibility and what can be done to expand services, or the airport program to move to the other side of the airport and so on. Right now what is happening, the program review office is looking at all those reports and looking at if there is a better way to govern what is going on there, a better way, looking at options, looking at other governance options.
The cold weather testing that the Member spoke of is something that we actually have some involvement in. Recently, we have done some cold weather testing up here for helicopters, so that is something that we are looking at.
The strategy, again, some Members talked about briefings and updates, so again, I am going to have the deputy minister talk about the strategy, but I just have a couple of items here that I will speak on.
The Member was supportive of the on-line registration; we appreciate his support. As we expand, that is exactly our intention and that we need to expand and that is what we will be doing and trying to get as many things on-line as possible.
The Deh Cho Bridge has not increased the cost of living to a large part in the city, so we have had a consultant look at that aspect of the Deh Cho Bridge, whether or not it was adding costs to the city. We notice that there is no change in the cost of gasoline, that there was some, I think, a couple of times where some people may have transferred too much of the cost over and above what they were paying in tolls to some products that were being brought in. That was something that was addressed and the increased costs on items were minimal. Like, if a vehicle was hauling maybe 10 cars across and was paying $300, then that would be like $30 per car, as an example, and taking that cost would be the direct cost of the toll they transferred to the customer and would hardly be noticeable, an individual buying a $40,000 car that was being increased by $30.
Getting back to an update on the strategy, what the plan is moving forward, I will ask the deputy minister to finish off my response.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Russ Neudorf
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will be updating out multi-modal Transportation Strategy in the next fiscal year. There is a lot of background work that is underway right now. Runway issue study, we talked about Green Light before, our Corridors for Canada, all of those different studies are going to be wrapped together into our new multi-modal strategy. We also do want to undertake some consultations as part of that, so we are working on a plan to put that together, also building on the work of the Economic Opportunities Strategy and the Mineral Development Strategy, recognizing the strong link between transportation systems and economic development in the North and in the NWT. We would hope to finalize that during the next fiscal year and we actually hope to be able to get this to standing committee soon to provide a more detailed update on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Robert Bouchard
Thank you, Deputy Minister Neudorf. Minister Beaulieu, did you have any closing final remarks?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very quickly, I am very excited about the Detah road. I am happy the Minister has decided to move on that and I’m wondering when exactly that negotiation or that request for proposal or whatever will start happening. I know the summer season is the best to do the work and I am obviously hoping to see that come out in April.
I also want to mention that in the Inuvik-Tuk highway, I think the concern is that the economic benefits are not rippling very widely, they are largely accruing to the large companies there.
There was one other issue. The forecasting of runway issues was one thing that wasn’t covered that I had mentioned, what we’re doing in the way of having a look at runways, making sure that there are no issues there and preventing them if possible. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Russ Neudorf
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On Detah access, $2 million was approved in capital last fall. So we are working on the plan for that and actually for reconstructing the rest of the highway. We do hope that the recent announcement from the federal government under the Building Canada
Plan will provide an opportunity to reconstruct and chipseal that entire highway, but as that work progresses, we will be prepared. That work will be undertaken this summer. So we’ll have our contracting in place to have that work undertaken this summer.
Runway issues and climate change, we’ve talked in the past about the work that we are doing around climate change trying to prepare for, better understand what impacts changing climate will have on our infrastructure is already having and then trying to forecast what it might have in the future. One of the tools that we’re using there, the important one, is the vulnerability assessment, and we’ve applied that to several of our runways now just trying to get a better handle or idea of what might happen in the future assuming that the warming trend does continue. Inuvik is the one where it’s currently being applied with the depression that showed up there last fall quite suddenly tied to the work that we want to undertake this summer to fully repair and fix that.
So the full focus of looking at climate change is, of course, to better understand what might be happening in the future and then what we can do to adapt to the changes there.
The Inuvik-Tuk highway, lots of work underway there now and I think that the communities are definitely seeing the benefits of that work up to well over 100 people that are employed already on the project and anywhere around 80 percent of local and/or northern people that are working on that job along with a high percentage of contracting and subcontracting opportunities to the local northern companies. So I think the region in particular is feeling the benefits from that project already. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll just maybe use the time just to request a copy of this so-called study that was done.
The Minister highlighted $300 for a truck to drive across the bridge, obviously, the 10 cars, divide that up, you know, that type of survey. He had highlighted that example, the gas he said they’re using as a reference. I’d like to find out who your expert is. I’d like to see what paperwork they generated, justify their position and I’d also like to know if that could be sent to my office, including the costs that may have come. I want to get a sense or a full grasp of what they were looking at because, by the way, as a footnote, I was referring to things like milk, pellets that provide heat, small consumables like lumber and other things like that.
That said, I’d be happy if they would deliver a copy of the study as well as the cost. Inform me as to the cost. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Russ Neudorf
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before the Deh Cho Bridge was to come into service, one of the items that we wanted to look at was what the impact of the toll was going to be on the cost of goods in the North Slave region. We did engage a consultant to take a look at that for us and he came back and said that really there’s nothing I can do for you because the top cost of the toll on the price of goods coming into the North Slave region, the cost of the toll or the impact of the toll is so minor that there was nothing that they could measure to make it meaningful. So, in fact, we did not engage the services of a consultant for that work. As we’ve seen the toll, and the bridge has been in operation I guess coming up to a year and a half now, really the inflation in Yellowknife has tracked inflation in other parts of the country. So there is no extraordinary impact of the toll that could be felt. There are certain commodities where you would expect to see the toll, those large bulk commodities and gasoline is the example that the Minister had brought up before, where if the cost of that toll was going to be passed on completely it would have been at about two-thirds of a cent a litre that could be passed on and the price of gas has not changed for the last three years in Yellowknife. So it stayed the same as it was beforehand, which is where we would hope to see the impact from the bridge come in.
Really, there are efficiencies to be gained. Yes, you have to pay the cost of the toll, but there are many efficiencies to be gained in the transportation industry and then just in businesses and managing their inventory and those types of costs. So we expect, at the end of the day, that those two items would wash themselves out and there would be no impact of the toll and it will take time for that to sort itself out. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre
I guess I don’t have much of a follow-up because, quite frankly, I’m not sure what to say now because I was given the impression that they had studied this and had some paperwork behind it.
I don’t want to tie too much more committee time up on this, but I don’t necessarily think that those are the right things studied, and when you consider the Hay River rack price of gasoline today is 90 cents – 90.1 cents, by the way – it does lend oneself to wonder where the additional 48 cents, almost 50 cents are coming from. So how does a gain of 50 cents between Hay River rack price and Yellowknife, well it’s the transportation, the costs and everything. To say the bridge didn’t have an effect, well, if the deputy minister is correct with his math, I suspect he is, two-thirds of a cent, well, they
ate it, but that’s not the way it is when you go buy pellets that go up a dollar a bag from $5.50 to $6.50 overnight as an example.
Anyway, I don’t really see much to anyone’s benefit to pursue this point anymore. My point is this: that cost has increased. The Department of Transportation in concert with other departments could have spent some time studying this. As a public awareness, could Transportation have changed anything? Absolutely not. I’ve always maintained that private industry has the ability to set their prices. However, it’s government’s responsibility to inform the consumers and we failed, or I should say the government failed. Some of us tried to raise this concern and it fell on deaf ears and consumers are concerned. So there’s not really much more to add. Thank you.