Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Any further general comments? Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow up to my Member’s statement today, I have some questions for the Minister of Transportation. In this tentative agreement we have with the federal government for the construction of a highway from Inuvik to Tuk, I would like to ask the Minister, in his discussions with the federal government, has the topic of the ongoing cost of the operations and maintenance of that highway ever been raised. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. General comments. Next I have Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again I must preface my statement with all due respect to the folks of the Beaufort-Delta. We, as keepers of the public purse, have a job here to keep the public interest, and the accountability and transparency for the expenditure of government funds. We have an obligation to question that.

The cost-benefit analysis of a piece of infrastructure of this expense at this time in this area needs to be very critically looked at, and I do hear the plight of the Inuvik area, the Inuvik region, in terms of the economic downtown, the conditions there. I do not think that a $300...

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Next I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. We’ll now move on to general comments. Just by way of process here, folks, I believe the wish of the committee is Members will make general comments, not including questions that they expect the Minister to answer. We will save the questions for the detail and we will ask the Minister to hold his response to the general comments until the end until everyone has provided general comments. Agreed?

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Does committee agree?

I’ll call the committee back to order. We are continuing on with our review of the main estimates and the department we have up next is Department of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he’d like to provide opening comments to his department.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to say I don’t know if I can support this motion because it just makes too much sense. This wouldn’t be our way of doing things. But, you know, Ms. Bisaro just made a comment to me. I mean, even if we went out and borrowed the money to do this, it would make sense.

When we were in committee one day, Mr. Yakeleya drew me a picture. I said, draw me a picture, and he drew a picture of all of our resources here in the Northwest Territories which get piped to a refinery in southern Canada, then get brought back, then get put into a big holding tank and then...

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Does committee agree?