Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let's talk about dredging. When I was growing up, there used to be a sandbar at the public beach in Hay River maybe a couple of hundred feet out. You couldn't really see it from the shore, but seagulls would land on it, so it became known as Seagull Island. To get there, you would have to wade out waist-deep in water. About 10 years ago, a former Hay River MLA stood up in this House and talked about how Seagull Island had changed because of the build-up in sediment, saying, "You could practically walk halfway to Fort Providence now without getting wet." Obviously, she was exaggerating, but Seagull Island hasn't been an island in a long time.
A while ago, you could have probably called it Seagull Peninsula. Then it turned into Seagull Point. I was out there just a couple weeks ago, and what was once a submerged sandbar is now hundreds of metres of dry land. It juts out into the Great Slave Lake, curves west and then south, resulting in a brand new body of water, thousands of square feet in area that is physically separated from the lake. Let's call it Seagull Lagoon.
On the other side of the island, the West Channel is increasingly becoming isolated from the lake, as sediment is deposited at the mouth of the channel, merging islands with the mainland, and creating the perfect barrier to block ice that would otherwise flow out of the channel into the lake during breakup.
Mr. Speaker, things have gotten worse since I stood up in this House three and a half years ago and asked this Cabinet how they were going to work towards fulfilling the GNWT's mandate of getting the Hay River dredged. The statement I made that day was similar to the one made by the previous MLA from Hay River North at the beginning of his term. His statement was similar to the one made by the former Member for Hay River South the term before that. The answers that all three of us have received over and over again from the three different Ministers of Transportation have all been the same. They say dredging is not the GNWT's responsibility, but they'll work with the federal government to see if they'll pay for it.
Well, Mr. Speaker, over the last quarter century, the feds have made their position clear by denying applications put forth by the GNWT and, in some cases, outright ignoring letters sent by our Ministers related to this issue.
Mr. Speaker, they say the Government of Canada pays attention to our proceedings, so instead of asking our Cabinet to lobby the feds, I'll address the rest of my comments directly to the federal government: start doing your job and resume dredging operations in Hay River. This is an economic issue, this is a public safety issue, and, as far as I'm concerned, this is a federal election issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.