Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just in terms of highways, culverts, bridges and chipseal overlay project, I know that one of the

priorities of my communities is we’re excited to see the ongoing development of chipseal between Providence junction and towards Simpson and we’ve still got quite a bit of a ways to go yet. I’d just like to see what the department’s plans are for continuing chipsealing between Providence junction and Checkpoint. I know that we repaired some of that chipseal, I think it was 18 kilometres from Providence junction towards Fort Simpson, and there’s still another 18 kilometres of chipseal that should be saved. I would like to ask the Minister if they’re going to address that as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Highway No. 7, Mr. Chair. I’m

pleased with the resources available for our Highway No. 7 reconstruction. Perhaps I can just ask the Minister a

bout the current plans for ’16-17 for the

amount of money that’s resourced for next year.

Yes, I certainly realize the cost of a brand new snow blower, but I think there may be other ones in the Department of Transportation in other communities or other regions that could be perhaps repurposed to the community of Trout Lake. So I would just ask the Minister to keep that in mind as they evaluate their equipment and the equipment needs. I did speak in the House about it before and I thought there was a solution of an older, not very old, but an older snow blower in another community that could have been purposed over to Trout Lake. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just with the much larger airport, the Minister was in Trout Lake and one of the needs is a snow blower as opposed to using the graders. That’s one of the requests, is to move towards a snow blower for the community of Trout Lake for their much larger airport. They really feel that they’ll maintain the airport a lot better with a snow blower.

I’d just like to ask, is it on any short-term plan for the community of Trout Lake? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So, just in terms of integrity of the new airport, it sounds like it all settled out. Certainly residents are very happy to see the new airport terminal building was certainly in the bidding process and look forward to the construction to protect the travelling public during the upcoming winter months. Maybe the Minister can let me know when that’s slated for completion. Just with that, then I have one other thing with regard to the Trout Lake Airport. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to direct your attention to Trout Lake. I know that people are very happy with a much longer runway, but I think there was some remedial work that was done to the slumpage in the springtime, so maybe the Minister could comment on i

t. I don’t see any capital for ’16-17. Does that mean

that the airport settled just great and we’ll have many years of operational life of the current airport? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Well, all the more reason for the Minister to make a commitment that he won’t move any money from our future capital. Like I said, that’s a concern of mine and we all work hard as an Assembly, Members on this side of the House with Cabinet, and a couple of weeks ago when we went through the capital budget, we’ve come here, we’ve got a fairly good plan that everybody’s agreeable with, but the impact of $32 million I just sure don’t want to see it being amended or changed because there is a successful claim there.

I’d just like to ask the Minister one more time what are his thoughts about that movement forward. We try to get assurance in this House that nothing will be done throughout th

e election period, so I’d just like

to ask the Minister what are his thoughts about how long will a claims process take, commit not to do anything during the election period. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I do have other issues that I’ll address in the detail, but just overall this has been a significant week, beginning last week with the potential claims of the Inuvik-Tuk Highway there. My initial concern and my original concern was about should the claims be successful about taking away from other capital projects, especially in ’16-17, so I’d like to ask the Minister: how is the department and how is this government going to handle the potential claim, should it be accepted, especially when w

e’re talking

about capital items and transportation in ’16-17? You know, as MLAs we all fought pretty hard to take care of our constituency needs and I would say, for example, Highway No. 7. Just how would it impact, of that magnitude of $32 million, our future capital expenses as planned in this House, Mr. Chair? Thank you.

While I’ve got the microphone,

I’d like to speak a little bit about future needs of Fort Simpson. Of course, due to the housing stock, there’s a need for a new eight-plex or a 10-plex type of

building. I don’t know if the department has that in

their forecast for future growth of Fort Simpson and their needs there.