MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to present a petition on behalf of the people in Labrador with regard to the Trans-Labrador Highway. It says:

WHEREAS the Trans-Labrador Highway is a vital transportation lifeline for the Labrador communities, providing access, generating economic activity, and allowing residents to obtain health care and other public services; and

Mr. Speaker, people have been petitioning the House of Assembly since we reopened for the spring session in Labrador. Petitions have come from Lake Melville area, from Western Labrador, from the coast of Labrador, from the Labrador Straits. Mr. Speaker, people are concerned because they have no other choice only to drive over a gravel road that is in deplorable condition.

I say that, Mr. Speaker, because the roads have not been maintained properly. There has been no crushed stone put on the roads on a regular basis, sections of the road right now are ten and eleven years old and they need to have that kind of an investment in order to maintain any standard there. In addition to that, what we have seen is that traffic volumes have not only doubled and tripled, but have absolutely quadrupled on most sections of this road. That is the amount of traffic that has to use the road on a regular basis.

We are not only seeing individuals with their own vehicles, but we are seeing a lot of tractor trailers, we are seeing a lot of industrial equipment being taken over that road and it is having an impact. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you go on Facebook today there is a Web site that was designed by a trucker from Corner Brook who uses that road on a regular basis. You can see a lot of the footage that he has put there, the conditions of the road that he is driving over to deliver goods in and out of Labrador and what his trucking company is doing. I have talked to trucking companies in my own district and every single time they send a tractor trailer over that road, they come back and they have extensive damages that are costing them thousands of dollars.

I have heard from hundreds of people, Mr. Speaker, who are using the road. Not just from Labrador but from the Island and not just from the Island but from other parts of Canada who are using that road. They have been calling and e-mailing. There is no end to the messages that I have received. You can go on YouTube today and all you can find are videos of that section of road in Labrador and the conditions of that particular road.

I think it is unrealistic to expect that people are supposed to tolerate this, they are supposed to accept it, they are supposed to be quiet and everything is supposed to be good; it does not work that way. I think what they are asking is that government work with them; work with them to show some interest in that section of the highway in the Province; work with them to lobby and fight, Mr. Speaker, the federal government to secure money for paving of those sections of the road which right now are not even on the government’s radar in the Province.

They want you to, in the meantime, do some basic work, to put crush stone on the road, to grade it. I have talked to grader operators who work on the road, who have had to go off for medical reasons because they are shook up; they have physical ailments because of operating equipment on that particular road. The road is just so bad.