It's a good and very important question.
We're seeing the effects of climate change first-hand here in the north. Even this summer or this spring we saw the clay cliffs in Whitehorse collapse, knocking out one of the two access roads to downtown Whitehorse. In Ross River we are seeing a school underpinned by permafrost compromised in the small community there, which I was dealing with as highways minister for many years. The road to Alaska itself has permafrost issues, and it's very expensive for the territory to maintain, certainly to the standards that Alaska demands. We have about 250 to 300 people living on that north highway, and it's about $30 million a year to maintain. We just don't have those types of resources to do it.
We have to start looking at how we maintain our infrastructure in a way that.... Every dollar we spend on good infrastructure up front saves us $11 down the road in remediation and everything else. That's what I was told just the other day. It's very important—it's even just a basic responsibility—to look at these issues and deal with them before, head them off, and start building our infrastructure in a way that anticipates and deals with climate change.
In Old Crow we're building a new health centre. We're using climate change adaptive technologies to try to make sure that it's there. We're working with the first nation in Old Crow to do that.
The first nation in Old Crow, Vuntut Gwitchin, owns almost a controlling share in Air North, which is the northern airline, so it's a very sophisticated first nation. It has just built the largest solar panel array north of 60, and it's turning off its diesel power to bring down its own carbon footprint as a community. We helped with that, as did Ottawa. We're looking at technology to make sure we're cutting our greenhouse gases.
The other thing that's just happening is the Yukon government is going to be investing in a hydro development in Atlin, B.C., which, again, will cut our dependence on fossil fuels. We're working with the first nation in the region to do this.
Of course, we've been dealing with first nations through our Yukon Forum meeting with all of our first nations leaders every three months, and developing a rapport and a co-management in the territory that has not happened before. Every three months since we were elected we have held these Yukon Forums with all the indigenous leaders in the territory to discuss areas of mutual concern. Climate change, of course, comes up, and missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls. The last one, which we held in Old Crow just the other day, dealt with the lack of salmon returning to their spawning beds. These are heartrending discussions we're having with our indigenous leaders throughout the Yukon.
In terms of working together, I don't think you can manage the territory without that input into climate change, the salmon, or any of these issues. It's absolutely imperative that we work together as a unit. I really think the model works, and I can't imagine doing this job if I wasn't in regular contact with our first nation leaders and our municipal leaders as well. That's vital.
We're also rewriting our Civil Emergency Measures Act, which was last drafted...I think it's a year older than I am, so it's very old. We are going to rewrite that, and we're doing it with first nations and municipal leaders. They aren't even mentioned in that piece of legislation, by the way, and yet right now, for example, in Teslin—this is my last point—where we're fighting near historic levels of flooding in that community, it's the first nation and the municipal government working together that are putting together an absolutely remarkable flood defence. They are doing it with our support, of course, but we don't have to do a lot in that community, because the first nation and the municipality worked so well together getting those sandbags deployed. That's the sort of work together we have to do more of in this country.