Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member is quite familiar with the agreement that was signed with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, and in the Bridge Concession Agreement there is a clause that requires the Government of the Northwest Territories to assume the costs if they go over their budget amount. However, the money would then be recovered from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation from its return, and in the event that the government does assume all of the project and is not a partner anymore, it does allow for the government to recoup its costs through the self-liquidating clause...

There’s a P3 arrangement in this case and, yes, there are responsibilities assigned to different partners. In this case, we did charge back a lot of what the government has to have incurred, including all the different components of responsibility, but the two people that we have assigned are a position and a half that we have assigned directly to this position. We have not included and we did not agree anywhere in the concession agreement that we would charge it back. That’s the rationale for why we’re doing it the way we are. Thank you.

Thank you. I suppose we could calculate that. That’s not something we normally do on our project is divide a person’s time up into how many projects he’s got and assign a cost to those specific projects. This is a normal course of duty. We can certainly try to get some calculations together. It would entail some effort. We have a lot of people that may have worked on one portion or another on this project, but we can certainly have a discussion to see if we can get that together in a fairly short order, if that’s what’s being requested. Thank you.

Thank you. During the discussion of Committee of the Whole we had made a number of commitments. We certainly committed that we would continue to demonstrate that there is competent management on this project. We would provide clarity and timely information on where the project is at and we will also provide clarity and information on our role as a government and all our trades and people that are involved so that the public knows exactly where this project is at in terms of the timelines and so they will be fully informed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the consideration for providing a toll for all people that travel across the bridge is not something that we have looked at as an option. It would have to be a decision of this House. Right now the consideration for recovery on the extra $15 million would be through the revenue that’s raised from tolling the commercial vehicles. We have not had any discussion with any of my Cabinet colleagues or anyone else, for that matter, and that’s something we’ve considered. We’ve tried very hard to keep the commercial toll from increasing and we certainly did not want to burden the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, committee, for allowing me to make a few comments on the Deh Cho Bridge.

First of all, I guess, in hindsight, if we knew what it was going to cost, we would have built it in 1958 when the project was priced at $6.2 million and we wouldn’t be at this juncture.

Mr. Chairman, first of all I have to point out that I don’t think that anybody is happy with the news that the project has a cost overrun of $15 million. We certainly didn’t want to be in the position to come and request additional funding. It is unfortunate but it is a reality.

Mr. Chairman, it is also...

We don’t have any firm dates as of yet. As soon as we do, we’ll make sure we forward it to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was a little surprised to hear the Member raise the issue of the demolition of Deh Cho Hall. I thought maybe he was recycling his Member’s statement, or in the event that we were both talking about the same thing and he had some information that I wasn’t aware of. Mr. Speaker, we have made a commitment in this House to the Member that we would look at a salvage component to the demolition of Deh Cho Hall. We have not had any information, at least that has come to my attention, that all the materials are contaminated. We assume there is going to be...

Mr. Speaker, of course, the financial end of a contract, the end result of a good product, those things are all considered as we do an evaluation after the project is completed. Mr. Speaker, we have to point out that sole sourcing, of course, is only used in the situations that I outlined in the previous questions. So those are what we utilize as a guide and the end result is usually what determines whether the best practices were used in the case. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess there are three considerations that would be utilized for a sole-source contract to be awarded. First of all, the goods, the service or the construction have to be urgently required and the delay would be not in the public’s interest. We would also consider if there was only one party available that is able and capable of performing the contract. If it’s a contract with a consulting service or a company, that it will not exceed $25,000 in value, and if there are other types of contracts, of course, but that’s the basic criteria we use for sole...