Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The department works with the ferry operator to continue to try to improve the landings of both ferries at all times. There may be years when we have dumped a lot of gravel to try to secure and make the landings harder and so on and then they wash out. It is something that we constantly work at to try to make the ferry landings safe and even possible. We work on it all the time. So, if there is a permanent solution that is out there, we are also trying to find a permanent solution as well.

Will the Minister change the hours of operation on the Mackenzie River from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. back to 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m., which would be the same as the Peel River ferry hours?

The hours of operation are something that we’ve worked with and we’ve heard from the community of Tsiigehtchic that they wanted the hours of operation moved to certain hours. We would work with the community. If the community recommended hours that everybody supports in the community that are affected, we would have no issue moving the hours around, as long as we’re not adding hours outside of what we’re allowed to do within the standards that we follow and the guidelines that we follow to operate the ferry.

At this time we’re operating within the hours that we think

the communities want. If the communities don’t

want those hours, then we will go back into discussions to perhaps change the hours to what the community would like to see.

Earlier this summer the ferry in Tsiigehtchic started waiting on each side for 10 minutes, and the explanation that was given to my constituents was that the department was trying to save on fuel.

Will the Minister direct his department to ensure the Louis Cardinal Ferry is not waiting on each landing for 10 minutes to save on fuel?

The ferry sits for 10 minutes. That’s the call of the captain. The captain makes that call. The captain makes the call, but he’s given little opportunity to potential oncoming traffic. So just coming there and picking up vehicles and going back immediately, they sometimes are just missing vehicles by a little bit. If they have room on their ferry, they wait for 10 minutes to ensure that nobody is coming, and if no one comes then they will proceed, and if someone comes they will have benefitted from the ferry captain making the decision to wait for the time period that they do wait, which is

10 minutes, as the Member had indicated. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems that the captain makes up his own mind in many cases, because many times he picks up someone and leaves right away.

Will the Minister ensure that we have the same practice as we did in the past, which is whenever we had a full load they’d go to the other side? It was on demand in the past and many of my constituents would like that to be in place once again. Thank you.

We can talk to the ferry operator. The ferry operator and the department do discuss how the ferry should be running back and forth on a regular basis if it’s deemed that the best way to continue to move back and forth was just based on demand by viewing the vehicles across or viewing vehicles at Tsiigehtchic,

and that’s the way

the ferry is going to operate and that’s something that we can discuss with the captain. So, with that, even when they do come across and they see that there are vehicles there, they still would be beneficial, and it’s not, say, few, but beneficial to the travelling public for them to wait a while. But we can have those discussions with the ferry operator if the Member deems that that’s what should happen. We will do that.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ask some questions on my Member’s statement on the Inuvik-Tuk Highway. I know that they’re sensitive negotiations, so my experien

ce will tell me that I’ve got to be pretty

general about my questions, so I will proceed that way.

Just in terms of why did the Minister of Transportation not advise Regular Members of the claims of the Inuvik-Tuk Highway in an expedient and timely manner? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a legal contract with the operator. The operator has a process in the contract to make a claim. We then have to determine whether or not we think that is a valid claim, and we are going through the process. We were advised on August 19th that

they had run into some issues and had indicated that they would be making a claim on the contract, and we started working with the contractor to see if they

had a legitimate claim and how the claim would be broken down from year to year. Thank you.

Thank you very much. He didn’t

really speak to why he chose to not inform Regular Members for at least a couple of weeks afterwards. Nevertheless, how long does the Minister expect this process to take? Thank you.

We are working with the contractor right now and we’ve hired consultants to look at the contract, look at the claim, look at all of the cash flow, and it’s going to take at least a couple more weeks from this point before we have all the information, all the facts in order for us to make a decision. I would say it’s at least two weeks before we gather the data. How long we take to evaluate that depends on how much data we gather. Thank you.

I’d like to ask the Minister, will

he commit to providing regular updates to Members of this House and our Priorities and Planning committee as the claims are evaluated over the next couple of weeks? Mahsi.

Yesterday when we were meeting with Priorities and Planning, we committed that we would give the Regular Members updates on a weekly basis as we move through this process. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Of course, timing is

an issue because we’ll

be heading to dissolution pretty soon. In fact, our sitting of this House ends, I believe, next Thursday.

I’d just like to ask the Minister, perhaps, how they will be proceeding should there be an acceptable claim. Because I believe, and I’m sure my colleagues will concur, that you need the consent of the Assembly. So, I’d like to ask him, how will he proceed? Can the ministry and the Cabinet defer any decision until the first sitting of the 18th Assembly? Thank you, Mr.

Speaker.

Of course, we wish to evaluate the validity of the claim prior to dissolution of this Assembly; however, if that was to not happen, we’d have to follow the contract to see what provisions are in the contract right now and how much latitude we would have to be able to move forward with a claim and make sure that the work on the Inuvik-Tuk Highway would continue. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There is a protocol in place, a process that we obviously respect at the community level. We involve the elders whenever there’s a grieving process. We work very closely, whether it be the school board, the agencies that deliver educational programs to our schools or to our community. There is an orientation for all staff to go through and how we can access the elders, the contacts in the community who are the experts in the community. So, that is information that is easily accessible for these personnel, the professionals that we employ to work with the community members, to work with the leadership and also the elders. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.