David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a lot to add to that but we have the $150 million commitment from the federal government. We had the $1 million notional amount in the capital plan. We’re going to move forward with the project. I don’t think that was a secret to anybody. We wanted to move forward with the project. Being that it was tied to the borrowing limit, there were some constraints on the timing.

I just want to assure Ms. Bisaro and others that as this moves forward, we need to work together. You have my assurance that we will work together. I’ll get you the answers you need. The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Concerning the SEAs, we had come up with an MOU with the three diamond mines. That MOU expired last year. We’re currently in the process of trying to replace that MOU. I’ve had the opportunity now as the Minister of ITI, to sit down with the three head folks at the diamond mines and we have to chart a course forward when it comes to replacing that MOU, and I fully intend on doing that and including my colleague, the Minister of Health and Social Services, and my colleague, the Minister of ECE, in a way forward on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to respond to Mr. Bromley’s comments. Again, I respect Mr. Bromley’s position. I don’t agree with everything and his arguments on why he should not support the $2.5 million, but the way I look at it, and again people are trying to make parallels with the Deh Cho Bridge and it’s just not an accurate depiction of this project because we have a partner that’s putting in $150 million into this project and that’s the federal government. We didn’t have that with the Deh Cho Bridge project.

Again, I think this project is developing our territory from a number of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to follow up on the Finance Minister’s comments and to Mrs. Groenewegen, I do appreciate her support. Looking at, I know some Members like to draw a comparison to the Deh Cho Bridge and I think the comparison is not something we can draw. I don’t think there are a lot of comparisons between the Deh Cho Bridge and the Tuk-Inuvik highway. On the Deh Cho Bridge it was always the federal government was going to come to the table and that was the premise for the Deh Cho Bridge all along. At the end of the day the federal government didn’t come to the table. In the Tuk...

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the Member’s thoughts on the funding. I will say that I am of the same belief that in a project of this size, the benefits, as much as possible, accrue to the businesses and the residents of the Northwest Territories and the majority of that money stays here in our economy and doesn’t end up in some southern economy somewhere. I think those are things that we need to strive towards and certainly it is my belief that we can sort out a procurement of the highway that will ensure that that happens. That is a ways away. Today we need to ensure that we can get the upfront...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Finance Minister for that. At committee last week there were a number of questions about decision points and I think some Members were under the impression that by approving the $2.5 million we’re saying yes to the, well, if it ends up being $250 million, but that’s not the case. I can’t reiterate that enough. We are not at that point. We need to get to a point, as the Finance Minister said, where we can make an informed decision on whether we can afford it, what it’s going to cost us, and those discussions will happen in this Assembly with the Members of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we spent a number of hours with both the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning and EDI committee late last week and provided a presentation to committee on the requirement of the $2.5 million that you see in the supp before us today. As I mentioned to Regular Members and the committees, the money that we’re requesting is to do the due diligence. I know there have been some estimates on what the highway will cost, but if we don’t go out and do the geotechnical work and the baseline, find out that baseline information, we’re not going to get an adequate...

I know a new subcommittee of Cabinet has been formed. It’s Economic Development and Employment, of which I’m the chair. I will be working closely with the lead deputy on that, Dan Daniels from ECE. I will certainly be working closely. We need to also keep in mind that as we move forward with devolution and we get more responsibility, we’re making decisions for ourselves, we’re growing our mining industry here in the Northwest Territories and the opportunities that that will bring, that there are going to be more jobs available. We need to ensure that our people are trained and we’ll have to...

Certainly, we have a number of sectors when it comes to our tourism that we have here in the Northwest Territories. When I spoke of statistics, we keep track of all the different sectors, whether it’s aurora viewing, fishing, hunting, general touring, outdoor adventure and things of that nature. We do have adequate statistics, which again, as we move forward with a marketing initiative like the Spectacular NWT, we will be able to two or three years down the road see where marketing initiatives like that may or may not have had an impact.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, it is.