Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is no set ratio. What is set is that there’s a project that we’re proposing to build from Tuk to Inuvik over challenging terrain. As we go forward, we identify the risks and we mitigate them. The $299 million and the contingency have given us room to capture that and, we believe, allow us to proceed with the project and bring it in on budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments and support for the work we’re doing in terms of building the territory. Moving south to north is one that people have been dreaming about, that are landlocked, of an opportunity to have road access that many of us in the southern part of the territory take for granted and is a very fundamental type of service. Far from being a sinkhole, it’s a critical, beautiful part of the Northwest Territories and deserves the same type of attempts and basic service that the southern territory takes for granted.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the number is $40 million over the life of the project.

The critical issue is the need to do a better job in terms of educating people about responsible drinking or not drinking at all and pregnant mothers not drinking. We need to have that discussion about the best way forward. He has pulled a number out of the air, a safe 10 percent is what his comment was. I am saying let’s agree that that’s a discussion that needs to be had and let’s see what we collectively can come up with for the next business planning process about the best way forward, and not forgetting the fact that we want to continue to stay coordinated and work very closely with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. First, if I may, before I turn it over to Mr. Neudorf, the EIRB website contains all the information that the Member said was lacking from the Transportation website. The Transportation website had a link to the EIRB. We made a commitment to providing a plain language summary of the risk matrix. We’ve done that. We were asked a couple of hours ago. We’ve had staff working hard to get that done. That will be tabled tomorrow. The committee has it before them in committee so we could have this fulsome discussion. In regard to the amount of high risk issues, I’ll ask Mr...

I’d just note the Member’s sharing of his experience in terms of projects and I look forward to his questions later.

No, they’re already here.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to update the people of the Northwest Territories on one of our key initiatives to respond to the global climate change problem: the NWT Greenhouse Gas Strategy.

As Members will recall, the Greenhouse Gas Strategy is one of the driving forces aimed at reducing our energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions, particularly within our government’s operations. It is this strategy that drives related initiatives in the areas of alternative energy, energy efficiency and climate change adaptations. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, the Greenhouse Gas Strategy is...

First let me just make a quick comment, if I may, in response to the comments about the fiscal and financial health of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

We’re one of the best run jurisdictions in the country, top three. We have an Aa1 credit rating. We have one of the best debt-to-GDP ratios, revenue-to-interest ratios in the country. We are pushing ourselves fiscally because we have a lot of things to do as a territory and we’re not prepared to sit back and be overly cautious. We’re careful and prudent, but we know we have to do things. As a government, we are managing ourselves...

Thank you, Madam Chair. That’s the whole point of all the estimating we’ve been doing. This has to be a fair deal. We have to get value for money. This is not a cost-plus contract. Everybody that’s involved in this project knows how difficult it is to come by money of this magnitude and the need to provide the public clear evidence of value for money.