Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to welcome the Department of Transportation here today and specifically Mr. Auger for joining us for his last tour. He will be missed, for sure.
Mr. Chair, really in no particular order, there will be a number of things I will be bringing up in general comments and some of those I will be re-emphasizing in detail.
To the Minister’s opening comments: what caught my attention in terms of something that I applaud as being noble, but when I look at the expenditure and what they are spending money on, I had to question the validity; and that is the $163,000 to increase services and information in French. That in itself is noble. I heard that part of this will be to install signs in French. If that means road signs in French, I would have to question the validity of spending that money. I don’t think constitutionally it is a requirement. I have yet to see road signs in French when I’m travelling in other western provinces. So again, if we are going to be spending money in French services, it should be more accessible to online narratives, those types of things. But if it is indeed to make signs French, I would probably question the spending of that in the communities and on the road access ways.
Ever since being a Member here, I have been fairly vocal on the area of emergency preparedness in our communities and on our highways. I know that there has been some work done behind the scenes,
the highway emergency alerting protocol, HEAP for short, in conjunction with MACA. Some work has been done in the past. I know there was a discussion paper that was provided. But when you look at the seriousness and the geopolitical scope and landscape that we have here, we run the risk of putting our residents in grave danger on our highway systems. I’m a bit perplexed, given the nature and what I think is the severity of the cause. I see a budget before us that is relatively quiet, almost silent to the issue of emergency preparedness on highways. Again, we can dive more into detail when we get to the directorate part of it, but for someone who has been a champion of the cause, I am a little bit disappointed that we are not putting that higher on our awareness level.
I do have to applaud the department on its road licensing and safety. More particularly with all the technology that we’ve seen come on board in the last year with online accessibility to abstracts and things of that nature. Again, I encourage that expenditure and I see the fruits of our labour in action and I think the residents of the Northwest Territories want to thank the forward-thinking in that area.
That being said, I know I’ve spoken in the House; I know the Member for Sahtu has spoken in the House and the Minister has commented as well today on getting our young people to get their driver’s licence in our smaller communities. This was a very problematic issue that came to our attention about a year or two ago, where a lot of our students who are graduating Grade 12 couldn’t apply for some of our jobs and some of our mining opportunities as a result of not having a driver’s licence, and I found that to be quite problematic and prevalent. I know I’ve heard that they’re trying to work with ECE to try to do proper protocols and put programs in place in our schools, but I don’t think we’re there yet and I strongly encourage a more sweeping approach, a more targeted approach to make sure that we’re getting drivers’ licences into the schools, incorporating schools that don’t have a road licensing safety office in that community. Let’s open up the doors of opportunity and that starts with a driver’s licence.
I know myself and I’m sure everyone here who got their first driver’s licence, you are pretty proud when you have one. Not only are you able to drive a vehicle but sometimes it’s your first piece of real I.D. with your picture on it. So there’s a sense of pride behind that, as well, when you’re travelling abroad going, I’ve got a driver’s licence.
So it is an accomplishment, and if we’re trying to foster an environment of trying to make people feel positive, I think it starts with our kids. It starts with the schools, and I encourage the department to reach out with the departments of ECE and MACA
to see if they can formulate a more formal process and let’s put the money in those types of projects.
I will have a more detailed piece when you talk about airports in general. The Minister is very much aware of my enthusiasm on looking at changes to the Yellowknife Airport governance program in a way that we are able to leverage our assets and provide better tools and a better economic landscape with our Yellowknife Airport. Again, I’ll leave that for later and I don’t expect the Minister to comment until we get to that detail.
I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t talk about the tolls at the Deh Cho Bridge for a second. I know the Member for Hay River North brought it up yesterday in general comments. My take on it is quite simple. I believe that we’re penalizing, to some degree, the small business owner who has a four-by-four truck, a half-ton truck, a three-quarter-ton truck, those types of vehicles. These commercial vehicles easily reach over that 4,500 kilogram threshold the moment they pull a trailer, the moment they pull a boat, the moment they pull a holiday trailer. A lot of times these businesses have to maintain separate accounting records for CRA, for taxation if they’re using that vehicle for personal use, but we don’t differentiate behind that at all. The moment a commercial truck goes northbound on that bridge, according to the new regulations it will be a $95 toll. I think if we’re trying to foster an environment of fairness, we’re trying to lower our cost of living. I think we’ve got to be fair to the small business owner. Because I know these regulations are under review, I’m going to strongly encourage, once again, that we look at eliminating that lesser threshold. I don’t believe it’s a cash grab that’s making the department a lot of money, but it’s an irritant, pure and simple, a complete irritant to the business community and those that are in and around that bridge area. I basically sympathize with them, including Yellowknifers who have to go northbound on that highway and pay that toll, especially for those categories I indicated.
It’s going to be in the not-too-distant future that the issue of NWT fires are going to be problematic again. We know we’re headed into another dry season and I do have to applaud the department for coordinating quite efficiently with ENR during our fire season of 2014. I know that there were bumps in the road. We know that the communication aspect of highway closures improved during the summer and I think the use of social media and social networking were definitely testaments to that improvement.
That being said, I can honestly say, as well, that there was also opportunity, and I’m hoping that we learned from our past in terms of how we can make things better for our residents. As I said, a lot of those closures were due to visibility. But unfortunately, when I say the word “visibility,” I was
almost skeptical that the visibility seemed to be very problematic during the hours of 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. but during the daytime visibility was okay. So I know the manpower and people power is an issue if we didn’t have enough people to man roadblocks or at least go up and down the highways or get aerial views of the road conditions. But I can’t count how many closures there were, especially on Highway No. 3 going into the capital city last year. I can attest, though, being someone who actually travelled those roads during closures and basically travelling on these roads when they were open immediately after and actually immediately closed, the conditions were fine. Yes, there was smoke, there was smoke everywhere in the Northwest Territories, but I don’t believe that they were to that level of liability and safety that I would consider it being an impediment. But I do have to indicate the fact that they were closed during certain periods of time, which begs to ask, did we have enough manpower or people power to actually make that decision. I’ll leave it up to the department to respond to that one.
Again, optics were definitely paramount. This is definitely the buzzword; the whisper around people waiting on both sides of the roads going, okay, why can’t we go through? Because it appeared it was fine. Again, I know the department is worried about safety, and for all intents and purposes I always err on the caution side, but I had to put that out there and this is my venue for doing so.
Last but not least, I know it’s a capital issue and I’ll talk about it a little bit more when we get into the highways. I know the Highway No. 4 bypass and all the rigours of some of the liabilities, the fact that it’s probably not complete. I’m really concerned about the liability, a contractor still not being paid. So I’ll leave that to when we get to that detail line. I know it’s an operational budget, but I need to get some update on that highway as well.
So, just a few things, Mr. Chair, and I’d like to thank the department again. I appreciate it. Thank you.