Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a few comments and concerns here. Under the Community Access Program there are a lot of great projects that fall under there, but one of the ones that I wanted to touch on was Willow River. Recently we purchased a bridge just this past year here and we were hoping to have that bridge in place this season. We are drawing near to the end of the season here. There’s less than two months to go. I presume there are no funds secured for that at this point and I’d like to hear something positive on that.
Also, I did do a statement in November, I believe, with regards to the ice crossing at Tsiigehtchic. This winter, for the winter season, a lot of progress has been made. People are saying it’s even faster than the service in the summer, which is good news to hear. I’ve been on it a few times and I think we’ve worked out all the kinks, and I look forward to seeing that continue in the future.
Under the Building Canada Plan, it hasn’t been approved in the House yet, but there’s a lot of concern in my riding about the continued work on the Dempster Highway. Just in the one year, this past year, there wasn’t any work. That was a big impact on the community with 30 to 50 jobs that were lost. It would be nice to see this continuing this summer. I’m not sure if we can have a positive response on that at this point.
Also under the same Building Canada Plan, I’m kind of concerned at seeing the change from Wrigley to Norman Wells. I believe when we first brought this up it was from Wrigley to Inuvik. As a Member from the Beaufort-Delta, I’d like to see that highway actually go right to Inuvik in my lifetime here, just because of all the goods that we see coming from the Yukon that could actually be coming through our territory. You know, you think of
all the tolls and weight bans and all the expenses that can be staying here in our territory. Hopefully, one day we could see this project completed all the way up to Inuvik, connecting up to Tuk one day.
Also, under marine, under ferry contracts, I have a number of concerns from my riding. They’d like to see this contract actually being managed out of the communities in the coming year here, and the contract is coming to an end. Once we work on that, hopefully we can resolve that issue.
Also under Transportation, I recently did a statement on the overflow areas, specifically by Tsiigehtchic. It’s affecting residents that actually live on that part of the land here. They chose to live a traditional lifestyle and it’s being affected on a daily basis every winter with overflow and it’s very challenging for them. Moving forward I hope we can adopt the practice that’s in the Yukon that they do to address the overflow, which is to install a heat trace line in culverts. Whenever there’s an issue, all they do is bring a generator there and plug it in. All you have to do is fill up the generator, check the oil. That actually eliminates that issue of overflow. It just passes through the culvert.
Those are about the only comments I have right now. Thank you.