Floyd Roland

Earlier, as I responded, I talked about like a mortgage, 25 years-plus. In this case it’s 35 years, but it is a typical commercial loan. I’ll have Ms. Melhorn speak to more of the details.

Mr. Speaker, before I get into the financial arrangements made by the lenders and the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, with input from quite a number of sources, let’s be clear. There was a project put in place by a previous government that had a concession agreement that flowed into this government. The Deh Cho Bridge Act was put in place even prior to that. Members may throw about the words “messed up” and so on. The simple fact is that we have had to step in because of contractor issues, because of capacity issues of this project.

Now, if all of the pieces fell together as they were initially...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our initial proposal to federal Finance staff has been a five-year window. We are unable to confirm at this time if that is what they presented to their Minister to bring forward. I could have additional conversations with them, but I know at this point trying to get it through again, his comment was short-term relief, project-specific and we are waiting to see what that actually means in the final documentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess, to deal with some of the spin that Mr. Ramsay continues to put out there and innuendo about things lacking and potential trouble here and trouble there, we’ve dealt with this from the day I first took the chair as Premier of the 16th Legislative Assembly, we’ve provided the information. Unfortunately we find ourselves here where we’re actually putting a document forward that would assume the debt and management of the project and make it a Government of the Northwest Territories, a fully owned and operated project of the Government of the Northwest Territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of the Deh Cho Bridge Project, and assuming the debt has come to this session for that purpose, is one where we had to initiate additional discussions with the federal government to work with us around our borrowing limit. With that in place, there will be no further impact on this government or the next government. Of course, the next government will have to set its own fiscal strategy as to how it goes about investing and spending of the dollars that are available. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the other question that was asked if we approached the federal government to look at this as self-liquidating debt and treat this as a permanent bump up to our borrowing limit, again I talk about the relationship with Minister Flaherty and when he states on it, he’s honoured his word both when he said we are unable to do something or when he can do something. He made it clear that this was going to be short-term relief, that we would not see a permanent adjustment to our debt limit, so I know at that point that’s off the table.

As for self-liquidating debt...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Joining me at the table to my right is the deputy minister of Finance, Ms. Margaret Melhorn; to my immediate left is Minister Michael McLeod, Minister of Transportation; to my far left is Mr. Russell Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation. Thank you.

The Member uses an example of Wrigley, for example, of having no nurse located in that community, but there are medical services provided to residents within that community, not the same as Yellowknife residents, not the same as residents from Inuvik, but on a level that we can provide those services with an aim to improve them. For example, that’s why the Foundation for Change comes into mind. It is through the business planning cycle -- and that’s a four-year cycle that we’ve initiated in this government -- to look at the way we deliver programs and services across the North and how we would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of factors that come into view as we talk about distribution of services throughout the Northwest Territories and evaluation of those programs and services. For example, there’s the capital standards process the Member alluded to in his Member’s statement of what type of construction that is permissible. In the past, the government also had, under that capital planning process, the size of the community. For example, what type of a water treatment plant fell into a community of 100 versus 500 versus 10,000. Those were in place as well...

Let me first recognize and appreciate the Member’s recognition of the times and challenges we face when we share information on initiatives that we’re thinking about going down and initiating and sharing that information and at times being held to account for information in its earliest days of forming and coming to setting direction as a government. We’ve got examples of that during this government itself, the 16th Assembly, which leads to huge challenges. When other governments in a party system want a direction set, a platform is set at a general election and the governing party can come in...