Thank you, Madam Chair. To my left is Russell Neudorf, deputy minister, Transportation; and to my right is assistant deputy minister of Transportation, Daniel Auger.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. So, we had left off on general comments. I believe Mr. Yakeleya was not finished on Thursday, so I will go to Mr. Yakeleya first.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a good weekend to think about what I said and I will tone it down here.

I do want to conclude my opening comments to the Minister, the department and the government. I would ask them if they would seriously consider the issue of decentralization with regard to looking at the regional offices in the Sahtu with the decision-making type of authorities by our superintendents being in this position for 10 years. I thought by now that the government would start seriously considering putting in our own superintendents for airports and highways in the Sahtu region.

I have had a number of e-mails and correspondence over 10 years, reasons why they aren’t able to do it yet. I want to make a play for it on behalf of the Sahtu people.

I have notes from one of my road trips, questions asked by Sahtu people why there isn’t yet a regional office. We certainly could take advantage of what’s happening there now and if we wait for the Mackenzie Valley Highway, it will be a while yet because of the amount of work that is required. We have come to a place where they are doing some work up in Inuvik.

I would ask if they would look at a plan, bring it to the House to look at how they could bring a regional office into the Sahtu for airports and highways.

Madam Chair, the winter roads have been quite busy this year. The support I’m going to lend to this Minister for Corridors for Canada and moving that proposal with the federal government, I’d like to hear where that’s out and where the projects in the proposal are being considered for support from the

territorial government. I will ask again to look at the Bear River Bridge and bring that up, so we can take advantage of it.

I’m very glad that the department has produced a booklet for the drivers in the Sahtu, more importantly for the truck drivers in the Sahtu, so they know more about the Sahtu.

The oil companies have given close to $400,000 to help with the winter roads. Last weekend I want onto the Conoco lease and the Husky lease. Certainly, by talking to the construction foreman, they have given me an indication of what type of dollars have gone into their roads. It’s a huge difference what dollars go into their roads compared to our winter roads in the Northwest Territories. There really is no comparison. Safety is their highest priority in the oil and gas industry. I believe that’s also with the winter roads we have in the communities. Maintaining the roads and putting the proper signs and cutting down the errors that are dangerous in our Sahtu winter roads are a must, and I think the Minister has begun to do that already.

I do want to say we appreciate the additional support we are going to have in our winter roads for the amount of traffic that is now coming into the communities on the winter roads. Between Tulita and Norman Wells, where I drove this past weekend, there are quite big trucks on the roads there. I would certainly like to see more maintenance on the roads. They are taking out the potholes. Driving from Norman Wells to Tulita is about 84 kilometres. The shape the roads were in, if those roads were like that between here and Behchoko, you would automatically see a lot of transportation trucks and contractors out spooning off those roads. I don’t think our roads should be treated any different. We can also put a lot of water trucks out there.

The last point I want to make before concluding is there’s a great need for this Minister to work with Education, Culture and Employment to bring Class 5 training into the communities in the Sahtu. I’m working with the Department of Education council. We have a lot of young people in Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, Deline, Tulita and Norman Wells that certainly could benefit from a Class 5 training program in the schools. A lot of them have been told that they could work, and want to work, but yet they fall short of having a Class 5 driver’s licence. That hinders them; that limits them to getting other jobs. So I would look forward to this Minister in this budget helping our communities out to work with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to get Class 5 training programs in our small communities. Like I said earlier, there are close to 500 youth – that’s 2012 stats – that are aged between 15 and 24 years of age and they’re ready to get on with life and get some training in oil

and gas, or traditional economy, or with government. A lot of them would benefit greatly by having a Class 5 training program and what better place to do it than in our educational institutions to motivate the youth so that they can know that the training is available to them. Go to school, gain self-confidence, self-esteem and know that their Class 5 training could possibly help them with their educational diploma program.

So that’s something specifically I’m looking to this Minister for, to work with the Education Minister to see if this is a possibility of bringing in an educational drivers’ training program. That’s all I have to say, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. General comments, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of general comments here. I’d like to initially start off and say that the department has done a good job in enhancing the services to residents through the on-line services, which started fairly recently. I was able to re-register my vehicle and did it on a Sunday morning, having a cup of coffee – it was grand – and then received the blank sticker in the mail, I don’t know, a week or so ago and I haven’t put it on yet, but minus 30 is not great for putting them on.

So I hope that the department will take the success of vehicle registration and expand. They were talking about expanding on-line services, so I hope that it will happen sooner rather than later. This latest one seems to be fairly successful, so that’s all good.

I do want to express my concern still about the Inuvik-Tuk highway and the costs for that particular project. We keep getting little bits of the project that are sort of coming to us after the fact. I know we’ve had a contract initially that is over with and now we have a second contract, but then we’ve also got costs for the royalties and for the gravel. So I guess I’m just again expressing my concern about the fact that this project is very similar to one we had a number of years ago and I’m extremely hesitant that we are actually going to make this project on budget and on schedule. On schedule is probably a heck of a lot easier to make than on budget. So, basically, just a concern that I want to express there.

I did raise it in the House, but I want to mention it again. I’m quite disappointed that the department has not yet done a post-mortem on the Deh Cho Bridge. That whole project from beginning to end was fraught with difficulties and certainly processes which we don’t want to repeat. The Minister has advised me that yes, that’s going to be done, but I think the timing was something like before the end of the 17th Assembly and that’s an awful long time

from when the project itself was finished. So I would

encourage the Minister to finish it an awful lot sooner.

Other than that, I don’t have anything else to add. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. General comments. Next I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few comments on the department. I guess one of the hot button items that I just brought up today was the winter road maintenance and some of the early closures of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I guess I am concerned in the fact that I’m hearing from different people in the industry and in the area that road maintenance is being shut down and companies are told that they don’t have a cycle left. Some companies only have one cycle left. I guess my concern in that area is, you know, I equate it to firefighting and we tend to have cost overruns in that on an annual basis. We budget a certain amount, but how we can predict what road maintenance is going to be required in certain areas? I don’t quite understand how we can predict the weather in those areas.

I know, for example, Tuktoyaktuk gets blown in lots and they may have to actually dig out the road five or six times a year, but what happens if it’s 12 or 13 times a year? I’m sure the contractor comes back to us and says, well, it has been extreme weather this season. In this example, the season has been longer. Can they come back to us for additional funds?

For the maintenance side of it, I would think we’d want to maintain as much as we can to keep that road open all the time and as long as we can. As I’ve indicated, the industry is putting money into this area, as well, so they can keep the road open, get it opened earlier. So, I mean, I’m sure they’re interested in keeping the road open longer as well. I guess it’s just how we communicate that with people. The concern was that the temperature is not really dropping, but yet they were talking about restrictions on the road already and the temperatures really haven’t dropped. I’m sure the Minister and the department know well the concerns already.

The other area of concern that I brought to the department recently was the permitting process for the trucking industry to get over-width and overweight permits seem to be taking longer and longer and I’m not sure what has changed in that process. I was getting compliments on the department’s process, the 1-800 24/7 number seemed to be working this summer. But over the last couple of months I’ve been getting more concerns that it’s taking upwards of two or three hours to get a permit to move equipment or to get through an area, so I’m just wondering what has changed that process.

Ms. Bisaro talked about the on-line services and I’m just wondering if there’s a possibility that we add that to the service so that we can go on-line, a company would be able to log on on-line, tell them the dimensions of the unit that they’re travelling with and basically get approval that way. Along those lines, I was asking questions about that contract, it’s a southern contract right now. How much longer is left on that contract and when will we be able to look at that contract being supplied in the North?

Ms. Bisaro talked about getting her sticker and I registered my vehicle on-line and still haven’t received my white sticker. I’m not sure what happened there. Yellowknife MLAs, I guess, get a little preference.

The other issue that I want to dredge up is, obviously, I was talking about dredging last week, and I know the department has some people that are dealing with dredging on a consistent basis and I’d like to see us do some sort of assessment of what it’s going to cost to complete dredging in the Hay River area. I know it’s a federal responsibility, but it’s also territorial. It’s a shipping and transportation issue. So, I mean, if we can do this internally to do some cost estimates of what it’s going to be when the federal programs and the Minister responsible for Emergency Measures basically indicated there’s some mitigation stuff there, but I think it’s Transportation’s responsibility, as well, when we look into the cost of what it’s going to take to do this project. Is it a $1 million project? Is it a $12 million project? I don’t think the department really clearly knows and we would like to know those numbers, those estimates.

Another area of concern we’re hearing in the Hay River area is we have a maintenance garage in that area. It seems like that maintenance garage is losing a little bit of traction to a Yellowknife operation here and it seems like where most of that maintenance was being done out of Hay River is now being split between Hay River and Yellowknife, and I’m not sure when that mandate has changed, I guess, as far as creating a second maintenance area for that type of facility. I’d like to know when the department decided that it was going to have two maintenance garages as opposed to just one. The maintenance guys from the Hay River area come up here and they say, well, man, they’ve got new equipment and new everything there, and we’re struggling to get a bunch of the facilities upgraded in the Hay River area. I guess our concern is, obviously, with talking about decentralization, and again, it seems like there’s almost a centralization in that department in the maintenance area of it.

Another area of concern and, I guess, appreciation is they repaired the Hay River airport, and it’s great that we fixed that bump in the runway, but I guess my question would be when do we expect to do an

overall assessment of the runways and what it’s going to take, because right now we know that there’s going to be additional expenditures in that area to fix it up probably in another four or five years. I’m just wondering if the department has put that money in there. I couldn’t quite find it myself, but if there’s any money in to study the Hay River airport as far as runway conditions in the future maintenance requirements there.

One of my final comments is truck regulations. I’ve talked about it several times in the House here about, obviously the tri-drive. We’re trying the experimental couple years’ process, and I’d like to get some update on where that’s at, what kind of initial results are we getting. As well as the truck regulations that I’ve talked about is the fact that we have pickups pulling a trailer and now we’re over the weight limit of the 4,500 kilograms, and then having to pay bridge tolls as well as having to have a Class 3 driver’s licence to run those types of equipment, where other jurisdictions like Alberta don’t have those requirements. I want a little bit more consistency and I’m wondering if the department has any more on that, keeping regulations consistent, finding that in Alberta a pickup is a pickup is a pickup. It doesn’t matter what it’s pulling. I understand some of the trailers that are being pulled are extreme, but any kind of half-ton pulling a trailer now, you’re over your 4,500 kilograms, making it very difficult for small contractors that have labourers only that are running this equipment, to run up and down to fix and service some of the communities in my area, and running into this difficulty of having to have a Class 3 driver’s licence now basically limits them. They need a talent pool, and most people that can acquire a Class 3 driver’s licence are probably using it to their best ability to run a big gravel truck or whatever in any industry or mining industry, so it’s a difficulty for the labour pool as well. I’d like the department to continue to try to figure out some of those hiccups in our regulation process when we compare them to other jurisdictions.

That’s all my comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. General comments. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You’re probably going to hear a number of similar comments that have already been echoed by some of colleagues, so I’ll go in really no particular order here.

First and foremost, I think the Inuvik-Tuk highway did pose a bit of concern for a number of Members, especially under the royalty of granular, and I strongly encourage the department to be a bit more transparent as we move forward on the process to make sure that that whole process is clearly stated for the record. We know that this is the first of many

segments of this road to be constructed and I think it’s imperative and paramount that that standard is clearly displayed by the department on how granular royalties came about. We’ve got a number of other land claim groups that are going to be part of the overall Mackenzie Valley Highway system, and I think we need to be very consistent as we move forward. But I think the department has an obligation and I think they could have done a little bit better job in preparing committee and the public with respect to what this royalty program is, how it’s being set up and how it’s being implemented.

The issue of the Deh Cho Bridge has come up a couple times here in general comments and I just want to echo more of some of the facts around it. We know that according to the public accounts being tabled of March 31, 2013, that there was a $600,000 shortfall in the collection of the toll, which begs to ask when – and I think I asked this in the House – are we going to do an audit on our toll system? I believe it’s warranted. When you see a shortfall of that magnitude, one does have to ask why. What happened to the traffic? If the traffic flow was reasonable, why would it not be to our advantage to get very close to the numbers of predictability, which obviously we did not do.

We also have the issue of, I think, we have an opportunity here with the Deh Cho Bridge to finally look at a rear-view mirror approach to our toll system in general. I think you’ve heard Mr. Bouchard, who brought up some of the regulations regarding a lot of people with commercial plates who are over their limit. In a lot of cases, these Yellowknife Members or any Northwest Territories resident who has a commercial small truck that is a half-ton or three-quarter ton pulling even such things as a holiday trailer or a fifth-wheel for their family is not exempt from the regulations, which I think is wrong. We know very well that we have a number of businesses out there – a lot of them are in my riding of Range Lake – who use their commercial truck for pulling things such as their travel trailer if they’re going down to Hay River to go fishing for the weekend, and they’re over their limit if they’re pulling a trailer or a very large boat. We know that that’s more of a taxation question that they’ve got to deal with their personal taxes and their business, but I don’t believe that we should be getting in the way of business by having a regulation that imposes the personal use of, I think, commercial vehicles with commercial plates. I’m asking this department to do a thorough review on that specific policy as it has come up a number of times in my riding, and I know others have brought that up as well.

I also believe that if we’re on the subject of the Deh Cho Bridge, the department has said in the past that they were going to do a retrospective analysis within six months of its completion. Well, we’re well beyond six months now of that completion date and

yet we still have not seen a retrospective analysis, and those are the words of the previous Minister as well. I’m asking this department when will this analysis take place, what is the depth of this analysis, what is the mandate, what are the terms of reference, and what should we expect by doing that? I think if doing it just to regurgitate what the Auditor General did a few years ago, really, in essence, would be a waste of everybody’s time.

That said, we do have a small amount of residual money left for the Deh Cho Bridge, and I think this is an opportunity for the department to be very transparent, what this amount of money that’s left in the fund, how it’s going to be used for the deficiencies, and whether or not there’s going to be a shortfall for the number of deficiencies that are left with the bridge. We are all aware that we were left with a taillight warranty with this bridge and now the taxpayers are going to be involved picking up the tab.

You heard, possibly from Members in the past, that we are patiently waiting for the completion of the transportation plan, but more importantly, the overall Highway Strategy. This has been something that has been talked about for a number of years now, ever since I started as a Member of the 17th Assembly. But I think with the Corridors for Canada III, that potential money that’s sitting on our doorstep without a plan, it makes one think, what exactly is the overall ideology of the department moving forward? I strongly encourage that the department bring that plan through proper public consultation and through a vetting process of committee so that we can have that high level discussion before these Corridors for Canada III monies start to trickle in. As you are well aware, these are matching dollars, so I know the department is going to have to come to this side of the House to appropriate monies to match this Corridors money that we’re going to be getting from the feds.

I’m hoping my next topic has the ears of the Finance Minister and the Finance department, because he’s always asking for ways to make money. I think there’s a beautiful way we can make money, and I think our airports are possibly the key for making that money. There are a number of our airports that are very high use and are actually quite extensively used by many different airlines and many different residents. I’m talking about your Inuvik, Norman Wells, you have your Yellowknife and you have your Hay River, just mentioning a couple of these higher use airports. If you look down south, a lot of jurisdictions in Canada have looked at privatization of their airports. They’ve actually liquidated their assets and leveraged their assets because the governments of the day running airports couldn’t do a good enough job. It was costing the taxpayer way too much money. By them privatizing them, they actually had a lift. In that first

year they made the money from their capitalization of projects and they were able to leverage their airports for profit.

We struggle, as a territory, for revenue. I challenge this department to work with the Department of Finance to see if there is viability and an opportunity for the privatization of our airports, because I truly believe we have an opportunity.

Last but not least, I’ve mentioned this many times in the House, is evolving our procurement process, especially in the Department of Transportation, and we’ve seen problems with this in the past under the term of negotiated and sole-sourcing with our procurement process in Transportation.

I’ll be speaking to this more in depth here because the Minister of Finance did table, last week, the findings of the government contracts over $5,000 and the percentage of monies that are being spent in sole-sourcing and negotiated contracts and I’ll be using that information at a further time.

But I believe we have a problem. We have a very antiquated policy when it deals with negotiating and sole-sourcing. Our procurement for our road, the Inuvik-Tuk highway is no different. That is a prime example. I think the process that we have needs a formal review. I’ll say this again and I’ll continue to mention that for the remainder of my term if it doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

The reason why I’m concerned about our procurement process is the fact that once we do negotiate a contract or sole-source policy for the procurement, our BIP is out the window. Our BIP does not have any bearing, which means that our business, our northern businesses, any northern businesses are completely shut out of the process and the procurement process, procurement purchasing and the building of any highway in the Northwest Territories, which leads me to be very concerned about how we’re moving as a territory and trying to build the capacity of our business in the Northwest Territories. When these business dollars are going down south under the guise of a procurement and negotiated contract policy, and when the BIP is not even something that the government here is concerned about, I’ve got a concern. I have to protect the rights; I have to protect the dollars of our businesses; I have to protect it to make sure these businesses have employees and these employees can pay their mortgage and their car payments and everything else and put food on the table.

We’ve been challenged by the Minister of Finance to put 2,000 people in housing and bring them to the Northwest Territories. Getting rid of the BIP process in large-scale contracting is definitely not in that best interest to support that initiative.

Thank you very much. I appreciate committee allowing me to talk a little bit about the general comments of Transportation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. General comments. Next I have Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just some general points, like my colleagues, and more likely a repeat of some issues that are common throughout the NWT that affect the Department of Transportation.

Foremost in my mind is the concept that when you’re driving down a public road and you incur some problems, either it’s a vehicle accident or fatality and you’re there to try and respond, I think the lead agency in trying to provide a service for the travelling public should be the Department of Transportation. I realized over the course of the two years that I’ve been here that I’ve been observing the study or else a mentor department that I prefer to come up with at least a coordinated approach to establish an agency or a body that could respond to vehicle accidents or fatalities that happen on the road.

What I’m specifically referencing is the need for paramedics and first responders and ambulance services to be available on a major highway or transportation system. To this date, we don’t have anything substantive to tell the public, to indicate to them very clearly and confidentially, yes, when you travel, you’re travelling at your own risk; however, this government will be able to provide a service if anything happens. That is not the case ,so I’m hoping that at some point the Department of Transportation will take some leadership in terms of ensuring that the interdepartmental efforts that have been going on for some time will come to fruition and that we’ll have at least a flashpoint of something being established so that there is at least a service of first responders for people that are travelling, especially the public that now enjoys 24-hour access on the transportation system coming from Edmonton to Yellowknife.

The other points that I wanted to highlight is there’s been some reference to the Deh Cho Bridge. Of course, the community I come from is Fort Providence, so we live under the shadow of the bridge. The initial concept, when the discussions took place on the bridge, was that the community wanted to be involved so initiated discussions with governments, so the concept of ownership, and given an opportunity for the community to be involved with a major infrastructure project was basically discussed and hashed out. The same…(inaudible)…possibilities was established. The whole experience, in the end, the bridge was constructed, but at the same time the involvement of the community was minimized. But I still believe what has become of the bridge is that there is a

relationship between this government and the community, and I’m hoping the basis of their relationship could be in terms of building a few key pillars of the community would want to initiate in terms of its interest for tourism, whether it’s looking at economic development initiatives, and those possibilities still exist. My hope is that the relationship would not be in vein, that we’re trying to build upon the negatives and try to build something positive out of that whole experience.

Of course, speaking of the bridge, too, in the periphery of the bridge are, of course, the old existing winter crossing where people before were able to cross by vehicle on the ice bridge. Those two peninsulas still exist and there’s one on the south side and one on the north side. Of course, there’s a road that goes alongside the river right from the old winter crossing right to the present site of the bridge and on to the community. That has been a concern for some time for community residents, ensuring that it could be accessible. There are a few residents that make their home out there. It’s important to ensure, for safety purposes, they at least have access to the community and the services for medical emergencies if need be. So, I would encourage the department to keep on working with the community, ensuring that the section of road is maintained.

That area, once again, if there’s any potential because of the interests in fishing, I know the peninsulas provide an opportunity for wind and keeping off the bugs. People just enjoy the area for fishing. However, I think there’s greater potential in how they could plan, organize and at least try to establish a marketing and management regime so that we take advantage of the tourism opportunities that exist in that area.

The other points that I wanted to raise, too, are just in terms of the ferry. The ferry is no longer in existence, of course, so most of our guys have moved on. I always believed that when the Great Slave Lake, the ice moves out about maybe the second week of June and by that time the ice is gone on the Mackenzie right from Beaver Lake all the way down to Inuvik, so you always have about two weeks or a week and a half waiting for the ice to clear before any kind of tugboats can leave Hay River and travel down to Tuktoyaktuk. I think the possibility, perhaps, of building upon nature’s advantage needs to be explored. I would encourage at least some discussions from the perspective of the community.

My other point with regard to airports, my colleague raised the idea that airports could perhaps be considered under the domain of private enterprise. Currently, the airport we have in Fort Providence was built, as I understand it, by the American Army when they were establishing air bases throughout the Mackenzie Valley. The current location right

now has it so that any flights coming from Fort Providence would have to almost fly over the community or, in some instances, fly across the river. Sometimes it’s not the greatest situation when you have fog rising from the river. Of course, that becomes a major hindrance for observing the runway. Perhaps the community may be interested in looking at how it is some options could be explored to either expand the facility or looking at some other sites.

The other communities that I serve, one in particular is interested in the idea of providing emergency services, if need be, in the realm of transportation emergencies if there’s a case that arises and there’s a need for an immediate air ambulance. Then the community has to at least have a helipad of some kind.

Those are the key points I wanted to raise. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Nadli. Next I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You’ve heard a lot of comments already, so I’m just going to keep mine really general, not general but to the point and try to keep it short.

There are concerns in Inuvik. Anyone who has been up there and driven from the airport to the community of Inuvik, there are a lot of areas that still need some attending to. In some cases it can be pretty dangerous, depending on the speed that you’re driving.

I also believe the Minister is quite well aware of the runway issues we had and the sinkhole that appeared not too long ago. We need to address those and that whole system to prevent any further damage.

This past year is the first time that we’ve tried the ferry operations. I know we’ve had updates in terms of dates of closure. It was a lot better than when we actually had to wait for the ice road. There were some good statistics when we had those briefings; however, I wouldn’t mind working with the department to see how we might be able to address upgrades to the Louis Cardinal ferry or the option of bringing the Merv Hardie down, as well, to make those days that we do have even longer, the days that the road is open.

You’ve heard about the Highway Strategy. There was mention of that. I’m not sure if committee has seen that strategy.

Lastly, with the Inuvik-Tuk highway, some good comments on that. I had a good update on the weekend when I was back home. The work that’s going into that is pretty amazing. Not only that, but the amount of guys who are working on that road, it’s quite nice to see.

Lastly, we lost the Coast Guard in Inuvik, the building, not too long ago. Now with this Inuvik-Tuk highway opening up and we talk about Arctic sovereignty and the waters opening up and we’re getting more vessels through the Northwest Passage, I wouldn’t mind if the Minister could open up communications with his federal counterpart to see if we can bring the Coast Guard office back to Inuvik. Like we said, the waters are opening up and we are getting coast to coast in terms of building the Inuvik-Tuk highway and I think it’s a great opportunity to make that a station once again. I wouldn’t mind seeing what the Minister has to say on addressing that concern. That’s it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Maybe some repetition here. The Green Light document on the environmental plan for the department I’d like to get an update on that, an evaluation of whether we are achieving those goals and objectives.

I’m also interested in the Inuvik and Hay River runway issues related to the loss of permafrost and other perhaps unknown underground issues. I’d like to know where we’re at in terms of schedule for a comprehensive assessment. I know we’ve done some short-term maintenance and whatnot, two or three million dollars’ worth of work. What capacity are we developing for forecasting these issues? These things are happening, but what are we doing on the front end, on the progressive side, to assess the basis of our runways and try to anticipate where the issues might be and see what we can do for preventative work?

I see on highways that our management costs are declining. I’m not one to complain about that, but a significant decline over the last couple of years. I’m wondering whether there’s an improvement of efficiencies or have we dropped a director level position or something there? It’s not something you commonly see in budgets these days, so I thought I’d find out what’s happening there.

I see the Deh Cho Bridge grant, Fort Providence, $200,000 a year continues and I’m wondering if the Minister can remind me for how long this goes on and what the purpose is. I think the Member for Deh Cho raised some good questions. Personally, I think it was unfortunate that we tried to use this as economic development for Fort Providence, knowing what the area has. It’s amazing country and has great opportunities for economic development. I can’t see what a bridge, no matter how big it is, might bring in terms of economic development. Apparently, we are funding that, a million bucks every five years for the community. What are we seeing there? How long is that going on and what are we seeing there in terms of the

original intent of economic development for this community?

Roads and licensing, I have to say, because my last name starts with a B, I have also indirectly had some experience registering my vehicle through my wife. She’s really good on the computer. Pretty flawless process, so I wanted to give a nod to the department. I think that’s really going to bring some efficiencies and I know a lot of people are appreciating that.

I believe we’re talking about legislation that gets rid of the stickers, so we won’t even have to wait for the stickers to arrive in the mail soon, perhaps.

I also noticed that the safety and regulation funding is declining, again unlike most line items. I would like to know what’s happening on that front. That seems like a real priority area, but again, perhaps it’s through efficiencies through the computerized services for drivers and motor vehicles. What’s happening there?

Winter roads, I know our costs are generally going up as it becomes more problematic, although there is high variation, as is expected, from year to year. Certainly, with the increased industry traffic in some areas, the potential for damage to roads has unintended consequences for residents, so I think there are lots of questions there.

The department notes in the Minister’s statement here that there is increased enforcement, which I think is appropriate, given some of the horror stories we’ve heard. I’d like to get an update on how many infractions we’re seeing and ticketing on the winter road, for example, in Sahtu this year compared to last year, to give us the assurance that, in fact, we are doing something there, and how many patrols and so on.

We’ve heard for a number of years about the big umbrella Transportation Strategy or plan. It doesn’t seem to be materializing. I didn’t see it mentioned in the Minister’s statement. Maybe I missed that. I know Members certainly have supported that, would like to see it done and I’m hoping that it would include consideration of railroads as one of our options. I know there are some mines that are talking about using that, the one in Tlicho area, for example, and possibly the mine north of the lake here for rare earth metals. I’d like to see it include an assessment of the maintenance deficit for our transportation infrastructure and what the cost is of a so-called balanced approach that we’re taking right now that favours new, very expensive to build and maintain projects over maintaining existing infrastructure. I’m hoping that we can hear from the Minister that this Transportation Strategy that should have materialized would include consideration of those subjects amongst many others. I’m going to leave it at that, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Any further general comments? Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. When you’re near the end of general comments, it hardly leaves anything left to provide a fresh perspective. Rather than going through them all at great length, I will just quickly reaffirm a couple of them very quickly in the sense of I’ll just go over them this way.

I support the concerns highlighted by the Inuvik-Tuk highway raised by Members. I think that’s a project that we have to keep a close eye on. I certainly, and still do, support the concept and the initiative, and it’s just a matter of watching the costs. It’s been raised by Members, not particularly by myself but I would say that I do support the intent. There has been talk about ways of spreading this project out over a few more years as opposed to trying to rush and get it all done at once, to ensure we spread the employment benefits of it out further so they become meaningful employment rather than quick jobs for everyone and then no jobs. I think that’s something we need to look at. It doesn’t mean I necessarily fully support that concept; it just means that I think it’s a very good one to talk about and certainly take a good look at.

The YK Airport is a perennial issue for me that our runway, I still think, is not at the length it should be. I think that we really need to start doing a broader view of where the Yellowknife runway should be and where it needs to be in 10 years. There has always been talk about extending the runway and moving the airport services to the other side. I think what we really need to do is maybe kick off a strategy here and say, what should the needs be at this airport for the next 10 to 20 years in the sense of we are targeting for development but really define it as where do we want to be for the next 50 years as a service to the people of the North. Of course, extension of runway means more economic development opportunities. That is an infrastructure that I think if we put some focus in on with the federal government, we could be looking at dollars there, but I’m not the right person here. I would say that these are skills and areas that people within the Department of Transportation would be much better suited, or better skilled and more knowledgeable than I about where to look for potential dollars. I think it’s a real missed opportunity to continue to ignore it. I’ve raised this issue for 10 years. There have been studies about expanding it. Again, I’m not sure we’ve really spent the energy in the area that we could.

One last thing on this particular area, be it extension of the runway, every time I see in the news about how Iqaluit does cold weather testing, I think, why isn’t this us? When I look at their weather in Iqaluit, it’s frustrating, but yet, at the same time,

it’s kind of weird how we always seem to be colder than them and they do all the cold weather testing. This could end up building into a partnership with the Department of ITI about trying to draw new clientele to the Northwest Territories for new money. That’s often the difficult challenge of bringing new money into a district where the money keeps circulating. We want new cash in our Northwest Territories. It doesn’t matter where it’s going; we just need it in our coffers. I would encourage the government at large to consider trying to reach out to the world as a cold weather testing region. I say that because almost every winter we see cars come up here in a bevy of beamers, a flock of BMWs or whatever little synonym sort of process you want to use to describe them, but quite frankly, we see quite a few of these vehicles, so why aren’t we extending them to all manufacturers on these types of things?

Although that’s not Transportation-specific, what I think, though, is at the same time we could give a true experience to these folks. I mean, we have ice roads. Wouldn’t it be neat to run four or five of those, assuming they could make it, but four or five of those Porsches up to the Ekati diamond mine? They could really test the vehicle on some of the coldest, hardest terrain to drive on. Maybe they’ll be next year’s TV movie about cold. We could call it the Cold Weather Testing Show or whatever. I’m not in the movie business, but somebody smarter than I could come up with a better name. There is a real opportunity there. We could do speed testing if we had our machinery out on some of these big lakes plowing for these folks and catering to them. We could draw a new economic opportunity. It wouldn’t necessarily, like I say, fall strictly on the shoulders of Transportation, but I think Transportation, working with ITI, could look at new opportunities. Again, that’s airline. It could be car. There are probably more ideas as well.

The next thing I would like to remind the Minister and the department is Members are still waiting for what I would define as a tangible Transportation Strategy. We sit and continue to wait. This is something we’ve been asking for, for a number of years. Quite frankly, it seems as if new roads are more important than the old roads and the old roads are certainly in some… I’m not even sure we can define them as roads some days. It depends on what region you live in and how important those roads are it seems some days. We really need that detail to be making good choices. I think, as well, it illustrates to the people of the Northwest Territories that when we get our attention drawn by a nice, new, shiny booklet that tells us about this new infrastructure, we don’t forget about the old infrastructure and that it continues to be maintained, needs to be maintained.

Just quickly through the next two subjects, which is I support the development of the on-line registry. I

don’t think I was the only one who brought it forward in the past, but I know I brought it forward. I think if the department wants more good ideas, I have a lot more, so feel free to keep listening.

I think that, just finishing off, I do want to support the concerns highlighted by my colleagues about the Deh Cho Bridge, but there is one in particular that I still want to exercise frustration. I had asked for the Department of Transportation, the old Minister refused and the old, old Minister refused about this, about showing the cost of living of goods and how they may change the toll system, and both Ministers scoffed at the concept, one right after the other. It was quite disappointing.

Many northern residents in the Yellowknife region were horrified by the new prices on how they spiked all of a sudden. Guess who they blamed? The Northwest Territories government. What do they blame? Oh, the bridge Yellowknife wanted. Quite frankly, Yellowknifers wanted it, but we always tend to forget that it was the town of Fort Providence that came forward pounding on the door and said, we will be the lead of this. First of all, it’s not about blaming, but don’t forget Fort Providence was part of the trigger of why we have the bridge. But it’s not about that, per se; it’s also about the fact that the trucking companies are now putting the costs and their extra little revenues they want to make, and stores are putting their extra revenues they make and they all point back to, oh my goodness, it’s the cost of driving that truck across the bridge and that’s why these things cost so much money. When you do the math on some of these products that they are saying and blaming solely on the cost of that bridge and the bridge toll, you’re finding out that they are charging four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times more than what the toll actually should have had an effect on it. I think that’s quite frustrating when you’re a consumer and you’re always raising the cost of living here.

This government has done nothing to show the cost of living really matters. Any time they refute that, they’ll turn and say, oh, but we’re maintaining it. Just think if the work we didn’t do, where would it be next?

Of course, the final point on the Deh Cho Bridge is last year – I think it was last year – there was a bit of a shock regarding the fact that stores had to reduce their load to somewhere in the range of 75 percent capacity without any notice. I certainly hope that those who learned the lesson through the school of hard knocks have been given some notice and certainly a reminder, and I would encourage the Department of Transportation to get out there even through some type of media radio campaign, reminding people in the North Slave that we have restricted load levels because of permafrost changes in the season, things we’ve never encouraged before, I would encourage them, once

again, to remind our northern businesses that this may be something they need to plan for accordingly. It did come as a shock and until it becomes business as usual, it may be still be a shock the second time around.

That said, those are just a few brief comments. I look forward to going page by page and detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. General comments. No further general comments. I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Very quickly, I’ll start off with the ferry, asked by MLA Blake, the Louis Cardinal ferry. The department is conducting a review of what has occurred at the ferry, trying to close the gap completely between the spring season and the winter season so that we’re able to move traffic through there every day. We were not successful in that, but we managed to get the heavy vehicles moving across the Mackenzie at Tsiigehtchic in 30 days as opposed to what was normally about an 80-day shutdown.

This year we have plans to discuss with the community… Some of the people had asked us when we went to Tsiigehtchic, to try to look at talking about the traditional knowledge that’s in the community and how we could maybe get the ice bridge in sooner than even this year.

What had happened was this was a completely different situation than the way that we did it in Fort Providence in the past. The water didn’t move as quickly in this area as it did where we keep the ferry operational in Fort Providence. It had really nothing to do with the ferry itself. Both the Louis Cardinal ferry and the Merv Hardie ferry would have been under the same issues. Merv Hardie would have had just as much difficulty crossing.

The community was concerned a bit about the damage to the ferry and we, of course, are going to fix the ferry 100 percent before we put it back in the water. There was some damage. As a result, machinery needed to move the ice as we were moving across.

On the Dempster Highway the department is looking at the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the highway through our plan, which is Corridors for Canada III. We are still going through the details of Building Canada, Corridors for Canada III from the federal government. Once the final number is received from all of the possible funding sources that the federal government has in this area, we will then come up with some options to try to address our plan as best we can. That’s not only for the Dempster but for all of the highways that were in our Corridors for Canada III.

The department, since 2007, has put about $28 million to meet some priority reconstructing on the Dempster Highway. We know that there’s work needed on the highway and we continue to do that work.

On Highway No. 7, in recent years we’ve invested, again, about $12 million in capital, in addition to the regular maintenance that we’re doing on there to continue to try to improve the highway. We’ve had some effort on trying to improve and strengthen that highway from the BC border to the Nahanni turnoff where we anticipate some heavy traffic, so a lot of our effort has been in that area.

We will continue to concentrate on rehabilitating the road. The plan is to put additional investment into Highway No. 7 as part of Corridors for Canada III. Again, we are still waiting for more details on how we’re going to structure the money from the Canada Building Plan and how it translates into our plan, Corridors for Canada III.

On Highway No. 1, the Member wanted to get a little bit of detail on what was planned as far as the chipsealing goes. The plan is that from kilometre 81, which I believe is the turnoff to Fort Providence, out to I think it’s about 18 or 20 kilometres that we will be preparing and chipsealing that portion of the highway and also chipsealing from 395 to 411, which I believe is from Checkpoint to the ferry. Not Checkpoint, pardon me, Jean Marie. Sorry. I guess it is called Checkpoint, so we’ve been looking at chipsealing that portion of the highway.

The Corridors for Canada III proposes investments in Highway No. 1 to widen and reconstruct sections between the junction and Wrigley, as well, so from the Fort Simpson junction on to Wrigley.

On the Trout Lake Airport, the work on the new airport, construction of a new airport and longer runway at Trout Lake continues to be something that we are working with the community. There are some challenges, no question about it. Ourselves, the contractor and the community have faced some challenges with it, but we’re very confident and comfortable that we are progressing as we go. We are always working with the idea that we’re trying to maximize employment in the community and the training opportunities for the residents. Having that is another objective within the overall. It’s not just a capital project for us; the community wants to see some employment, some training opportunities.

In addition to that, there’s been, I guess, more rain than what we would like to have seen to be able to effectively do the project. There were also some delays as a result of some materials that we weren’t happy with.

In response to some of the questions MLA Yakeleya had, Bear River Bridge, DOT is constructing new permanent bridges and improving grade on the Mackenzie winter road to improve the

abilities of residents to travel between the communities and provide safer highways, so we are doing a lot of that work, and some of the work remaining there long into the future in that Mackenzie Valley road is constructed. Some of the work we’re doing now will be incorporated into an all-season road. So we’re pleased with that.

The department completed the bridge design back quite a few years, 2006, which was estimated to cost about $70 million, in that area. So that’s the kind of money that we’re looking at for this one wide crossing on the Mackenzie Valley road and that is something that we’ve incorporated into our Corridors for Canada III and then, again as I repeat myself, we’re waiting for some of the final details on that before we move along.

We’re working with the resource development and industry and through the contribution agreements to increase the level of service on the Mackenzie winter road to accommodate the heavy traffic. So, because of the industry in there, we’re anticipating and are getting a large number of heavy traffic. So, as a department, we are working with industry to make sure that traffic is moving, that essential items that need to get into the Sahtu to see the work go there, gets in there in a safe manner and that industry is able to get the equipment and supplies they need in order to do the work that’s being done in that area. We have tried to assist the process not only with the road but increasing our presence in there with highway patrol officers. We’re establishing a list of mandatory equipment that commercial vehicles must have before being permitted on the winter road is something else we’re doing. We’ve improved the signage. MLA Yakeleya talked about the signage and we are improving the signage at all of the creek crossings, and distributed maps of the winter road, constructing wide-outs on the winter road to act as, I guess, hill climbing lanes for trucks and also rest areas.

The Member also spoke of the regional presence for the department in the Sahtu and in Norman Wells, or I guess in the Sahtu in general. We continue to review the option of establishing a regional operation for DOT in Norman Wells. At this time we don’t feel that a full regional office is needed in Norman Wells because there is no all-season highway. So we bring in some extra personnel during the winter road season and we feel that we have what’s necessary to continue the effective operation of the airport. So, at this time, it is difficult for us to justify an all-year-round regional office, a fully functional regional office, which would essentially just be an office that would take some of the positions, some of the other regions to build up, because right now we are doing the regional office work from, I think, on the airport, out of Inuvik and then for the winter season regional office is in Fort Simpson.

The department anticipates that once the decision is made and that we’re going to be constructing an all-season highway up the Mackenzie Valley, then we could see a regional office. It would be strategic and wise to put a regional office in Norman Wells at that time.

Ms. Bisaro supported our on-line service, as many of the MLAs have. We think that that’s something that’s going to be effective. Member Bouchard asked about expanding the on-line service and that is the intention. So the issue that the MLA brought forward here with commercial vehicles and permitting and so on, it was a bit of an issue with 24/7 operations. We are hoping that as the on-line service expands that we’re able to add commercial permitting and so on to the on-line service that we offer now.

MLA Bisaro asked about the Inuvik-Tuk highway and whether or not we would be on budget, that it may be difficult to be on budget. I guess the only way we can respond to that is to say that we have a budget that we’re working towards, we have a contract in place, we have a smaller contingency than we would like. With a project this size, we’d hope that there would be a contingency which is comparable to other projects of this magnitude, but we don’t have that here. But we’ve tried to cover as much of the costs as possible. We do recognize there’s a risk associated with this type of construction. There’s no prototype for us to follow. This is brand new technology that’s going in there and this type of highway has never been built anywhere previously. So with all of those unknowns, we took the best experts in this area and put them together and said, you know, they’ve come up with this plan that they think will work, we’re confident, we put the money into it and we’re proceeding. Only time will tell whether or not this Inuvik-Tuk highway will be on the original budget or not. So there are hopes that it will be.

She also asked about the retrospective analysis of the bridge, as did MLA Dolynny. We are currently doing a terms of reference for that, recognizing that maybe a promise was made to do the retrospective analysis on the completion of the bridge. We still have some deficiencies. We could essentially say, well, we’re just not 100 percent complete until all the deficiencies, or we could say that the bridge is complete with deficiencies this summer. In any event, the idea is to try to bring something that is useful to the table that takes a look at a document, an analysis that’s going to help us in the future, not just for the sake of putting an analysis together because we said we would do it in six months. But we want to put something together that’s going to be useful and useable for us as we move forward.

The central repair, there is no change in central repair. We’re not taking positions out of Hay River to move them into Yellowknife for central repair, but

we are seeing that as our equipment ages and that we don’t really have the capital to be replacing all of the pieces of equipment that should be replaced, we are repairing this equipment. So putting a second office, a central repair in Yellowknife was the most economical thing we could do to extend the life of the equipment that we have. So this was not an attempt to remove anything from the regions, but just to try to make our equipment last a little bit longer.

The airport assessment is something that we are doing. Assessment of all of our airports will be done, and right now it’s a part of our airport O and M.

I’m just going to talk a bit about the tri-drive, and I’m going to ask the deputy minister to provide a little more detail on that. It’s a very technical area. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Neudorf.

Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member also spoke about the winter road maintenance and what happens when there is heavier snowfall and so on and it blocks off the roads more than would be anticipated. We build those types of things into our contract, and on the other side, if the season went very well and it was colder than anticipated, then the highway could be extended beyond our contract. We tried to run some of the contracts and the ones down here to about March 31st , and they usually end within that

fiscal year. If the road is extended well into April, as sometimes happens further up north, then it’s in the contract to do that. That it’s a public road and that we keep it open and we pay the contractor that we negotiate with on it.

MLA Dolynny talked a bit about the royalties. We are continuing to negotiate with IRC on the royalties. We are very comfortable and feel that the organization is being very reasonable and that whatever deal that we get between ourselves and the Inuvialuit is going to be something that would be beneficial to the project. They recognize that this is

something that favours the region, but they also recognize it is something that is being built to Tuktoyaktuk and not really having a positive impact on Inuvialuit people of Ulukhaktok, Paulatuk and Sachs Harbour, and the Inuvialuit people in Aklavik, so those people are also part of the land claim. You can’t take away a royalty from individuals that are not benefitting directly from the highway. Tuk is. They recognize that. There are many Inuvialuit of their membership in Tuk and Inuvik, and so with that in mind, they were very reasonable and came up with something that they were comfortable with.

The audit on the toll of the Deh Cho Bridge as requested by the same Member, again, as I responded earlier, we‘d look at doing that. The first year where we did an audit, or I’m not sure we could really refer to it as an audit, but we did an evaluation and determined that we were slightly lower than anticipated for traffic, so there was less traffic there than we anticipated so our numbers were a little bit lower. This year it looks like we’re right on target.

Also, the idea of commercial plates on vehicles that are hauling personal trailers and so on and RVs and so on, we would look at that. Essentially, there is something to compare to with Alberta. Alberta is pretty wide open yet they have heavier weights and so on coming across. But we’re not Alberta; we’re the NWT. We set our own rules. We consider Yukon also has roads that come from the Yukon that end up over here, and BC, we have access directly. BC roads come directly into the NWT as well. We try to work with all jurisdictions and try to be as harmonious as possible when we’re developing a motor vehicles system right across the country. That’s something that we looked at and we know that it’s difficult to just let everyone go by even commercial, because the Member used an example of somebody going down to Hay River pulling a private vehicle and going down there. Well, it’s just as easy for that individual to say that they did some business while they were down there and write off the trip. At any event, I think we’re talking about $91, and that’s something that we’re, at this time, not prepared to remove.

There was mention of some deficiencies on the bridge. It’s not really a holdback. It was something that was a letter of comfort, or letter of credit from a bank and backed up by the Government of New Brunswick. They’re watching those expenditures since they’re paying for it, so when we put in a request to spend some of that money, we make sure that it’s something that’s going to meet the acid test for the government down there to be able to make the payment, so we’re cautious about what we put through.

Privatization of airports is something that came up. What may appear to be privatization is probably things that are passed on to an airport authority,

and in the Northwest Territories there is only one airport that could possibly end up in an airport authority where there would be a profit. No other airport has enough use to be able to generate any sort of profit, so any airport other than Yellowknife that’s passed on to an airport authority would not be something that can operate without huge subsidies from the government, so it is essentially better for the government to continue to operate the airports.

The negotiated contract on the Inuvik-Tuk highway was also brought up, the negotiated contract and how it pertains to BIP. Well, first on the negotiated contract, we have a policy on negotiated contracts that we follow, so we do not bring other things into the mix. We follow that policy. When we negotiate a contract we have to have a policy. That’s the way the government does business. We had followed that policy to negotiate that contract. In as far as BIP goes, the Business Incentive Policy. The Business Incentive Policy, had it been applied to the Inuvik-Tuk highway, would have maxed at $500,000. That’s the maximum on BIP. The size of the project really doesn’t matter. On this project it would be a very, very small percentage. Putting that out and putting it to public tender and recognizing that on a project this size, an advantage we’re giving to a northern company that we’re trying to get to do the work, would be minimal, so it would have not been a good idea to put this out to tender because the BIP, even in its fullest application, would have only been a half a million dollars on a $230 million contract.

In as far as the individual Northerners going to the Joint Venture Group that’s building Inuvik-Tuk highway looking at the BIP, making an application and applying BIP, again, we negotiate a contract with these guys. They give us a list of companies that they’re going to use some Northerners in an attempt to try and use mostly northern. However, as a government, if we started going into every purchase, every procurement item that this company had and said you had to apply BIP, we would increase the cost of the highway.

On one hand, Members would want us to stay within budget. On the other hand, they want us to apply a policy that would increase the cost of the highway. We looked at this and said, the bottom line here is the most important, most essential thing. We think that the region is getting a benefit by us negotiating the contract. We’re going to let the contractor do the procurement and give us a list of the individual companies and individuals that they are hoping to use.

MLA Nadli talked about ambulance services. The Department of Health and Social Services, MACA and our department are working on a project. The Department of Health is bringing legislation forward on first responders. I think the Members recognize, as part of the Health Professions Act, that

emergency responder service providers are one of the first three professions that are going forward. MACA is working with the communities on that. Right now, between the three departments, they are getting together with the community reps that would be affected by providing ambulance service. We are moving through the process and hopefully we will have something, and if we think it’s feasible and the best way to go, that’s what we’re going to do.

The Deh Cho Bridge, the deal was that we are providing $200,000 a year for the next 35 years to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. In addition to that, we’ve asked the community to provide us with an access road budget to keep the road open from the bridge back towards the lake where the people live. There are about six households or cabins out there that people are using. My understanding is that that road remained open all of this winter.

The airport in Fort Providence, it’s not that we don’t have the CARs people at that airport. I guess it’s a public airport. I’m not recalling all of the details that are around that airport, so I’m just going to have the deputy minister give a little briefing on the Fort Providence Airport. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Neudorf.