Again, I can reiterate the fact that we will continue to work with MACA and HSS to develop some sort of emergency highway coverage. We’re working with the highway emergency and learning protocol, like I’ve indicated previously. We think it’s needed. It’s a matter of figuring out the logistics of how, how to do it. So, I mean, once the three departments are able to determine whose responsibility this would lie under. Right now it’s shared. The responsibility appears to be shared. We’re responsible for the highway, MACA is responsible for the municipal service that has the emergency vehicle, and potentially Health is responsible for the people that could end up injured and maybe who own the ambulances and so on. Now in the city of Yellowknife, for example, the city owns the ambulances.
So, all of those types of details must be worked out. I will have a discussion with my colleagues, maybe, to put some sort of timelines together for us to come up with something. I think we have dragged this on for a long time between the departments, so maybe it’s time for us to put some timelines together to see what we can do and determine when we can do it.
As a department, we encourage larger areas for cellular coverage. We recognize that once you drive around in Alberta you always have coverage. We know that. We do have the dead spots. You leave here, 25 to 30 kilometres from here you lose your cell service, pick it up before Rae, it drops off the other side of Behchoko and so on and so forth. If we could open the coverage completely that would be ideal. We’re not responsible for communication towers as a department, but we do encourage that they put them along the highway so that the coverage can be there.
The fires, we’re hoping that we’ve learned. We can’t help the individuals that were stranded. I mean, we couldn’t help that they were stranded. We recognize all of the work that the people in Fort Providence did to make lives a little easier for individuals that were stranded in Providence, and many people commented on people bringing food, water, blankets, whatever to the people that were stranded. We certainly appreciate that. As a government we thought that the community did a real good job of trying to support. I think the same type of thing would have happened had there been a lot of traffic near other communities, but we certainly heard about that in Fort Providence and that’s something we were happy that occurred.
Right now the rail service to Hay River is something that, as you know, we’ve talked about quite a bit. A recent announcement, or a recent upcoming announcement I suppose, I could say by the federal government to put maybe more infrastructure money into the railhead. So we’re hoping that at least the rail is improved to Hay River. Now, getting any rail out into Fort Providence I think could be a difficult thing. It would be a major federal project for sure by the federal government, a real major project for them to put rail out there. It’s an interesting thing on the marine because Cooper, a company out of BC does operate out of Fort Simpson and they’re able to move things on the Mackenzie River fairly quickly as a result of what the Member indicated, the Mackenzie River opens and they’re able to travel from Simpson up a lot sooner. It’s an NTCL decision whether or not they think they should have an operation out of Fort Providence, so it’s not something that the Department of Transportation would involve itself in. We would, as a government, utilize the service for sure if they were using NTCL out of Fort Providence. We utilize the service out of Hay River now. So I guess that’s something that the Member would have to discuss with that company.
I wasn’t 100 percent clear on the Deh Cho Bridge tolls. All I can say is that the people with private plates don’t pay tolls and people with commercial plates that are hauling and in vehicles over 4,500 kilograms are paying tolls. Thank you.