David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of things on the Department of Justice. I have talked to the Minister about the promotion and the way that aboriginal employees in the corrections system can expect to move their careers along. We’ve had a back and forth here last week on a situation that I’ve encountered with a constituent. I know the department is doing its best to try to recruit aboriginal people into the corrections field, but you have to nurture, foster and develop these employees so that they can ultimately take on mid-management and senior management positions within corrections...

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. We’re back on page 6. We’re still on page 6. Mr. Menicoche is asking whether or not the information package the Minister gave committee today can be shared publicly. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use my Member’s statement to again draw attention to this Cabinet’s increasing practice of awarding lucrative contracts to former senior public servants without any competitive process.

In a reply to a written question asked by Mr. Bromley and tabled in this House earlier this session, the government highlighted an alarming number of contracts that have been awarded to former senior bureaucrats on a sole-sourced basis. The Premier told us in the House that such contracts are justified because they are a way to ensure that our most talented people earn a living...

I heard that, but I didn’t hear the commitment to make the effort to charge every hour that our departmental staff has spent on the Deh Cho Bridge Project to the Deh Cho Bridge Project so that we can recoup that money. I didn’t hear a commitment to do that. Thank you.

I appreciate the response from the Finance Minister. I know we need to move forward. There’s no sense crying over what hasn’t happened in the past two and a half years that this government has been responsible for this project. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the inaction. That’s fine. But going forward -- and I’m talking about from right now -- somebody has got to take this project on and take responsibility for it being delivered effectively, efficiently, on time, and on some kind of budget. We can’t have an endless pit of money being dumped into this project with nobody taking...

Just another thing, you know, a lot of Members have talked about it and I’ve talked about it in the past, but the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Department of Transportation has obviously had to incur some costs. I mean, we’ve got a couple of senior staff here that are on the project management team. You know, I’m sure we’ve paid for some of the design review work that’s been ongoing. How are we accounting for that? Is that not incorporated in the budget of the bridge or should it be incorporated in that? You know, if we can get some of the costs back as the Minister has...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under the project coordination under the org chart for the Deh Cho Bridge Project and Construction Management Structure, maybe it’s blacked out somewhere, but under the project coordination I don’t see Associated Engineering anywhere under the project coordination heading. Also, under that project coordination heading I’d like to ask the Minister or deputy minister who has experience building a 1.1 kilometre bridge across a river anywhere on this project coordinating team.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One thing just picking up on Mr. Yakeleya’s question is that the tolls are indexed every year. The government doesn’t often like to say that. But the tolls are indexed as well as the $2 million is indexed. Everything is indexed in this project for 35 years. I just wanted to put that out there.

One other thing I wanted to touch on is next Thursday is coming pretty quick. Members are going to go back to their constituencies and Cabinet is going to do what Cabinet does, and that’s make decisions. I want to know how Cabinet plans on keeping Regular Members in the loop when...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would assume that’s a contribution to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and that who knows what’s going to happen. I guess every day that goes by is a surprise waiting to happen. This $15 million, obviously there’s good reason for us to be looking at supporting this $15 million. I believe firmly that if the Minister wants my support for this $15 million, I think the government’s got to come clean on the current disposition financially of that project. What claims are put against the project and by whom? How much money has been spent to date? What are the outstanding...

I know the deputy minister said $4 million, but on the chart it says there is about $22 million of outstanding work by Ruskin on phase 1, so maybe, is it four or 22, because that is a big difference.