Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Am I to understand that $40,000 of this will be federal dollars provided at some point during the fiscal year? Thank you.

Thank you. That may have been the Minister’s thinking, but there was certainly no commitment from this House for $150 million for this project that I’m aware of. Now we’re being asked to approve another $5 million because we still have not proved up the gravel resources that, in fact, we’ve come back to the government trough on before, without getting what we need. So at what point do we say enough is enough and let’s put our dollars where we should be putting them rather than throwing them into a sinkhole?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments were actually made to me, so I would accept the Minister’s apology too.

Just on the fibre optic line, if I can pick up where we left off there. Obviously it doesn’t need a road. If this project goes ahead, it will obviously soak up a lot of infrastructure dollars for, as we know, very little economic gain. I believe the 400 seasonal jobs for each of five years and, according to the economic study done by the department, 42 long-term jobs over 45 years. I don’t know if the tenure might be a long-term job. I’m not sure of the definition there.

With the loss...

I think obviously we have been throwing a lot of money out on this project into last minute year-end activities on good faith, and obviously we haven’t had the questions that resolved or that they were meant to resolve. Is the intent to keep nickel and diming here, or is this essentially part of a go/no go decision that we’re discussing? Thank you.

I appreciate that additional information. This is a zone of a lot of thaw slumping. Is this area flat? Is it, fortunately, flat, or is it a bit rough that we’re going through and what’s the susceptibility to the thaw slumping?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just literally a few minutes ago, this House was resounding with the news of devolution. I would like to offer my congratulations to the Premier and his staff, our government and previous governments that have led to this devolution deal as well as, of course, Aboriginal leaders.

It’s great to see that all of the Aboriginal governments with settled land claims are at the table. We will apparently have considerable new authority with this devolution deal, but I also noticed, as I’m sure others did, that there were some binders on the words that we heard earlier today, one...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did think the instructions of the Chair were for the Minister to take a break to prepare an answer. Just kidding, Mr. Chairman.

I think the Minister, first of all, didn’t respond to my colleague Ms. Bisaro accurately when she asked about the glacier ice on the road, and I think he now understands that, in fact, there is remnant Wisconsin Glacier ice in the northerly parts of the route proposed for this highway. Obviously, we know from our experience with highways throughout the Northwest Territories that this translates to dollars, especially when we’re talking...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to pick up where I left off there. The Minister was claiming that I said the people of this region were not worthy, and various other twists to my words. I thought I remembered saying the people were spectacular and the region was spectacular, and they have huge capacity up there if they are involved in real economic development. It does seem to be a feature of this government that they often twist words and make our comments sound as if we have no trust in our people and stuff like this, but I do want to point that out, that in fact I was saying that the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe that’s true. It was a policy in the days of yore. It certainly is not any longer. What concerns me is, as time goes by, the proportion being paid for by the federal government declines steadily. Of course, this is all within context. I’m not just complaining about the cost of the road or anything. This is within the context of the other priorities that we have and the infrastructure deficit that we’re building as we choose to pour it all into this one project.

The Minister has noted that he thinks we can afford this. We are making decisions for the 17th...

We know that the Minister of Transportation has said this project would not proceed if there was anything less than 75 percent. Where does that put us?