Advisory Group To Help Plan Northern Roadwork

Advisory Group To Help Plan Northern Roadwork

Monday, June 29, 2009 at 14:01

The province’s Minister of Highways says getting northerners’ advice on what roads to invest in is the right approach.

Jim Reiter says getting input from people who actually live in the region will result in a “logical, well thought out” approach to future planning.

Last week, the government announced plans to seek advice from an advisory committee made up of northern First Nation, municipal and industry reps on which roads should be fixed first, and what new roads to spend money on.

Reiter says he feels his party’s strategy will result in a more practical plan than the one developed by the former NDP administration.

“That plan (the Northern Roads Strategy) wasn’t so much a strategy to fix roads as it was a strategy to get re-elected,” says Reiter.

“Promises were made without a lot of hope of securing other funding, and frankly, in my view, that whole thing was a bit of a disaster. We’re going to take a bit of a different approach, and do this thing properly,” he adds.

The advice Reiter gets from the Northern Transportation Advisory Committee will be used to develop a policy for next year’s budget process.