Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, these are recovery of costs incurred by NAV Canada for their share of electrical, heating, janitorial, water, and ATB maintenance.

It should be obvious. It’s a one-year budget, so it’s one year.

Mr. Speaker, we wouldn’t want any Member to assume we have hidden costs. We do have a tracking of all our expenditures. We could provide that information. We would have to see how far along it is in terms of presentation. We could also provide the breakout of what is being planned for the dollars that we are going to be requesting through the supplementary appropriation. I have no problem to commit to that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, yes, the Member has laid out a number of issues that we have been challenged with. The design was, of course, one issue that we had to wrestle with. We had a contractor that had to be replaced. We also had a developer that had fairly limited capacity. Those are issues that we tried, for the most part, over the last while, to improve with adding resources. We have changed budgets. We have added more people that we thought we could lend to this project. We also brought in different firms that would work with the different areas in terms of enhancing this project. We felt that we...

Thank you. I apologize to the Member if he hadn’t heard that we have concluded the design. We’ve said it on a number of occasions and we’ll say it again: The superstructure has been concluded. There is still some electrical work and toll collection portion along with the catwalk that has to be finalized. We expect that will be another two weeks. There’s enough there to move forward for shop drawings and a negotiated contract with the company.

Mr. Speaker, I have to state that we’ve taken every avenue to make information public. The Member is quite aware that I have made every effort to ensure...

Mr. Speaker, obviously, I disagree with the Member. I know he doesn’t care about how long it would take. We would have to translate that into what it would cost, added cost to what’s already built in to this supp that we have yet to bring forward. We would expect a good portion of what the $15 million ask is, is already interest and cost of delaying the project. We would have to add that amount to another year of delay and that would be quite significant, Mr. Speaker, over and above the $15 million. Thank you.

Maybe I have to remind the Member this is not the only project that we’ve sole sourced. The school in Inuvik is sole source also.

Mr. Speaker, this project started off as a public process with a tendering portion that was built into it. It has led into a number of changes and we certainly have heard in this House the challenges that have concerned the Members. We’ve made every effort, I want to assure the Members, Mr. Speaker, that I’ve taken the opportunity to meet with our staff, with the Bridge Corporation, with everybody that I could to see if we could influence the project moving forward...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely. I agree with the Member 100 percent. Let’s be real here, though. We have a supp that we are bringing forward in the next couple of days and we will have to answer those questions. This is getting ahead of the game. We haven’t formally been in a position to put that in front of Members. We are discussing, I guess, the terms now, but there are a number of things that we need to sign, and we will sign once we know that we have an arrangement and we have the approval of this House. I’m sure the Members are not going to be very satisfied or very happy with me if...

The pieces that the Member is referring to in terms of deciding to move forward with the actual negotiations with a different firm was decided upon prior to having the decision made to remove the project management team and have a new team put in place. The project management team change was as a result of this cost overrun, that triggered the discussion. It was decided at that point that we had to make changes. There are a lot of other things that have to be factored into this decision. We have a company that’s been able to identify the steel production, the places and slots that we’ve had to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a question I asked our own staff and our project management team. We believe all the components are concluded sufficiently that we can make the next steps in terms of entering into a contract and start the construction process. Thank you.