Jane Groenewegen

In light of the absolute barrage of questions that the Premier was asked, and given that he had full knowledge that the concession agreement had already been signed, I want to ask the Premier did he not feel that he had any duty to the Members of this House to just inform us of this very significant milestone which had been passed on the Deh Cho Bridge project: that the concession agreement had, in fact, already been signed? We had to find this out weeks and weeks later, after asking all session.

Did the Premier feel no obligation to open this and transparently share something that significant...

Mr. Speaker, the Premier has sort of inferred that he doesn’t like the idea of this debate. I can certainly understand why. It’s not a debate that he could actually win, because he says that we did not ask for the updated cost/benefit analysis and we didn’t pass any motions in this House asking for the concession agreement.

I’m looking at Hansard from May 10, when Mr. Ramsay states that it is very important that the government shares the information with the Members of the House so that we can ask questions so we can access the risk to the government, speaking of the Deh Cho Bridge project...

This is an extremely elaborate facility to be built. I don’t know what it topped out at — $50 million or so. There were things designed into the building for meeting together. I definitely know there was an aboriginal healing meeting room component. I toured the facility; I saw it.

If you’ve got this kind of money to throw around, I would rather see it go into some kind of programming. It isn’t about the stones and the bricks and mortar. That isn’t what’s going to heal people. If you want to bring people in and have elders come and talk to the people, put the money into programming.

SMCC in Hay...

Mr. Speaker, the Premier a few days ago committed in this House to putting together an estimate of what it would cost for us to terminate this agreement to proceed with the Deh Cho Bridge. A few days have now passed. I’d like to know where we’re at on that evaluation on what it would cost to terminate this agreement.

Mr. Chair, I can’t support it, not when we’re looking for 135 million ways to save money. I can’t support $540,000 for a fence, but I will vote when the time comes.

Mr. Speaker, I came to session with a lot of things to talk about, but I have to keep asking questions about this bridge, because that’s what the people want. They want answers.

I think everyone understands that the money that has been spent to date on the bridge — the $9 million — has been by way of a loan which was guaranteed by this government. But I want to move on to the larger issue of the loan to build the bridge, which is being secured by the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation.

I want to ask the Premier if our government is in fact guaranteeing that loan. If things go wrong and the loan is...

Mr. Chair, my questions on the Justice expenditures are similar. I still don’t understand why we have to build a perimeter fence. The $540,000 is a lot of money. I know the Premier tried to explain that, but why do we need a perimeter fence around North Slave Correctional Centre?

Mr. Speaker, as I tried to enjoy myself at home this weekend in Hay River, I couldn’t mistake the feelings of disappointment and frustration and unrest over the course that our government has charted for us in relation to the Deh Cho Bridge project. I had many people come up to me and remind me about the Deh Cho Bridge project, because everyone who came up had concerns as well.

I’m disappointed in the leadership, who are prepared to sacrifice transparency and accountability and the right of the people to know. I’m frustrated because, in the absence of clear and full communication on this...

Mr. Chairman, we are dealing with an interim appropriation here; this is not the normal kind of appropriation process that we would undertake. When the items were identified for capital in the interim appropriation, we were very clear in wanting to understand, I guess, as Regular Members, why they needed to be introduced in an interim appropriation.

So I guess to the point of this particular allocation, I have a few questions. I’d like to know, for the public record, why this particular capital project needed to be advanced in interim appropriation. I’d like to know what the substantiation is...

Just to confirm: even in light of the fact that the Premier knew how many concerns there were about this process and this project, a significant deadline of December 31st came and went. And a decision was made on that side of the House to extend that deadline to January 31st without any consultation or awareness on this side of the House.

Again, after the fact, we got a phone call. After January 31st had passed, we get a phone call. We were told that shareholders have changed and that the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation has met their requirements.

Somebody made a decision in spite of…. There was an...