David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Anything further, Mr. Menicoche? We’re on page 6, Transportation, operations expenditures, highways, not previously authorized, $15.9 million. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to continue asking some questions of the government on how they sole source contracts. I’m having a little bit of trouble understanding the rhyme and reason that the government uses for sole sourcing contracts in certain instances.

On the Department of Public Works website, they have the opportunities for people to sole source contracts throughout the government. I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works, other than negotiated contracts, under what circumstances can deputy ministers of Minister award contracts without some sort of competitive...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe I will just give this a shot. There is a negative on the Transportation for the construction of the new air terminal building in Tuktoyaktuk, there is a negative $300,000 under Public Works and Services, and then if you go to page 9, the page we are on, it shows up as transferred from the Department of Public Works and Services, $300,000. We agree with that, but then what Mr. Kalgutkar is saying is something about the bypass road having impacted that. I think that was the confusion. Thank you.

Thanks, committee. Mr. Menicoche.

I think the deputy minister makes a good argument, then, for charging all that time back to the project. The deputy minister himself... I know the Department of Transportation is busy with many other things that they’re doing and I know the deputy minister is committed to seeing this project through to conclusion; he spends a lot of time on that project, the Deh Cho Bridge Project. The deputy minister should be charging his time back to that project, Mr. Chairman, so we can at least get that back down the road and I’d like to see us make the effort at least to do that.

One other thing, Mr...

When you start looking at us approving this $15 million -- and I don’t believe that’s the end of it, I think there will be more -- you go back in time and I don’t think the project made any sense once the government had to ante up that extra $2 million. That decision was made by the previous government. My constituents and the people that I represent and the reason I’m here are to hold people accountable and responsible for decisions they make or don’t make. There have been alarm bells going off on this project since day one. There have been problems with the subtrades. There have been...

Now that the project has, like I said, for all intents and purposes, become a Government of the Northwest Territories project, I think the reporting on that project should be more readily available, let’s say, than it has been in the past. We should know on a day-to-day basis what’s happening with that project. I’m not saying I want to know on a day-to-day basis, but at least if Cabinet could keep Regular Members updated once a month or quarterly, even, as the project moves forward, I think that would be good. It’s always better to hear from our Cabinet colleagues than from the guy or woman on...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I’d just like to start out by applying a little bit to what Mr. McLeod had to say. I think the project did make sense when it cost $60 million and it would be self-financing. It made absolutely no sense when the government had to ante up the $2 million extra a year indexed, I must say, for the next 35 years and commit every government for the next 35 years to that expenditure. I would beg to differ with the Minister on whether the project made any sense. Also given the fact that it was a substantial negative cost-benefit to this Territory by building the bridge...

One of the other areas of concern was the fact that the design has always been something that hasn’t been... We haven’t really arrived at a finalized design. I know the Minister just last week was talking about there being some components to that design that still are outstanding. The question I would have is: how can the government sign a contract with this construction company with those issues outstanding? Because in my experience, Mr. Chairman, going back to my days as a city councillor, when you start, design changes on the fly, it costs you nothing but money and it gets very expensive...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Your committee would like to entertain Supplementary Appropriation (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 4, 2009-2010, followed by the Departments of Justice and Human Resources, in that order. Thank you.