Michael Miltenberger

When we do our fiscal forecasting, we make, I think, very good, appropriate decisions to make sure the money that we have is allocated to cover what has been identified as priorities of this government and this Legislature. The Tuk-Inuvik highway is one of those priorities. We will say enough is enough when we are all up on the Inuvik-Tuk highway cutting a ribbon that says we are now open for business and we will have a major northernmost chunk of the northernmost piece of the Mackenzie Valley Highway complete.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize if I have caused confusion. What it means is this is borrowed money. It would be $50 million less debt. We had booked $150 million. We had budgeted $150 million because we didn’t know what the federal government was going to put in other than the $150 million. The project cost was $300 million, so for planning purposes, until we knew what the federal number was, we budgeted $150 million of our money to go towards that project until we knew what the final federal dollar was going to be. Now that we know it’s $200 million, that means we have $50 million of...

The $200 million contribution by the federal government is their final contribution to this project. It will be up to us to manage the project successfully with our investment to hit the $299 million.

The big project, the final determination has yet to be made how we will proceed with that, whether it will be total public tender, negotiated. We have to look at a lot of factors. This $65 million, given the specificity of the work and the tight time frames, there’s a negotiated contract being worked out to put this money to use. But I’ll ask Mr. Neudorf to add a little more detail, please.

This supplementary document and the one supplementary document No. 1, 2013-14, are both related to Inuvik. This particular line item is related to the Inuvik-Tuk highway, and as we approve this amount and the one in the subsequent supplementary appropriation, we will be affirming the proceeding of the Tuk-Inuvik Highway Project. Thank you.

You’ve had the clear assurances from the department, from the deputy and from the Minister that the funds will be put to good use. Everything is waiting to go. The minute that this is passed and assented to, it will be starting to be put to use. Thank you.

The two basic areas are going to be to prove up the gravel sources from probable to proven, and the other big piece is to conclude the geotechnical work that needs to be done so that we can move the design from the 85 percent complete to the 100 percent complete in time for construction this coming fall.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The $65 million that is currently before this Assembly – the $5 million that was just approved and the $60 million now before the House – will prove up the gravel, we’ll do the geotechnical work, conclude that, and finalize a design before we go to tender and actually get the work done this fall.

Madam Chair, it will be a line item. It will be amortized over the life of the project. That’s how it will be delineated in the budget documents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If we look collectively as Northerners at the Northwest Territories, if regions prosper then we all prosper. If things go well in the Beaufort-Delta then we all benefit, if we can put in hydro transmission links that promote development. As former Minister Duncan said when we were in Ottawa, there are about 25 projects on the go, about $21 billion worth of activity, but a lot of it’s predicated on access to reasonably priced power. If we put transmission lines in and we and promote that kind of sustainable economic development, then the money goes into our coffers in...