Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we said, this is a pilot project that we have initiated. The main reasons we have done this are due to safety reasons, for one thing. There has been so much traffic on the Ingraham Trail. A number of the operators who have been operating out there who don't have access to land are stopping right on the highway and turning their lights off for viewing opportunities. That has created a very big safety hazard. As we know, in the wintertime is the resupply for fuel for the diamond mines. There is an atrocious amount of traffic that is out there.
This is one of the reasons we wanted to do this pilot project. What it has done is allowed up to 30 operators to access sites on the Ingraham Trail out there to get off the highway system. You have to be a licenced operator to do this. There is a fee that is applied to this. It is $2,000 a year, I think, for the licenced operators to access these sites for winter use. I think it has been a success so far.
Going forward, I hear the Member saying that there are some concerns around some of these older operators. One of the other things that these guys have to be a little more flexible about is there are all different, various levels of tour operators. There are some very successful tour operators in the Northwest Territories who cater to high-end customers, and there are low-end-tourist-cater operators who look after the lower end. They don't have access to these types of capital assets where they can have their own facilities along the Ingraham Trail.
Due to safety reasons, as I have said, we have piloted this project to try to get these people off the highway. We have worked closely with my other department of Infrastructure to get the pole-off out there at Prelude Lake to open up other opportunities for operators. I have said in this House a number of times that we are victims of our own success for the number of people who are coming here. We have to continue to work with all operators no matter what their stature is and the customers that they have, high-end or low-end, and continue to make sure it is a safe environment for everybody. Thank you, Mr. Chair.