Michael Miltenberger

Madam Chair, as we indicated to Mr. Dolynny, that work is being undertaken. We will be bringing it back. I will make sure that committee has involvement in development of those regulations so that we all have confidence that we have the right structures and regulatory processes in place. Thank you.

Madam Chair, is it too late to make a motion that we extend to conclude the business before this House?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you. The commitment is to that discussion, so that it’s clear what the final determination is going to be. Our commitment is to have that discussion. Our commitment is to hopefully keep all this money in the budget so that we can have the discussion; and if the money is gone, then it limits the discussion. If the money stays in the budget, then you have room to do other things. So our hope is similar to the Member for Nahendeh, that we have that discussion going forward to resolve this, but we need the resources collectively to do that together. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Mr. Kalgutkar indicated we will be coming back with the regulations. We will be reporting on the fund. It’s put away for 20 years. The whole intent of doing that is to keep it as politically tamperproof as possible. We want to keep that in mind as we move forward. We will have some role for ourselves, but this will be done according to the standard practice of managing our investments within the policy framework and regulations that are going to be set for this Heritage Fund. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For the purposes of this discussion, it was requested that we put more money back into Health and Social Services. We agreed to a number, 1.2 or so million dollars. The Minister of Health and Social Services has laid out where they would propose to spend that money, and we’re having the discussion today about the approval of the quantum number and new money that was being put into these different areas. We’ve talked about some of them already, the Heritage Fund, the emergency response money, and we’re going to talk about others in a bit here.

The Minister has indicated...

Madam Chair, I’ll just make a couple of comments and I’ll ask Mr. Kalgutkar to provide some of the technical detail. We are going to ensure that this fund is very carefully invested, that it’s protected. It’s been put away for enough time to accrue some value. So we’re not going to be chasing after any high-risk investments, but I’ll ask Mr. Kalgutkar to speak to some of the technical detail. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The commitment is going to be, of course, for Health and Social Services to work with the Social Programs committee. This supp was pulled together as a result of a lot of work in the last number of days. The Members are asking for a lot of detail on things that we haven’t had a chance to really put our minds to, other than to agree to the global figure and the general areas where the money is going to be allocated. I’ll ask Minister Beaulieu if he wants to add further to that, but as we are with the Heritage Fund, and as we’ll have the discussion on the energy money...

Madam Chair, what we have done is been what we’ve focused on from the start, is to complete the bridge across the Mackenzie River. That project is 90 percent complete. It is not a $10 million issue. It is a $200 million issue. It is one that we have worked hard and we all look back and say yes, if we were doing this over, we definitely would have a different genesis. It would definitely have a different evolution as it went forward, but that is the benefit of hindsight.

So now here we are. We’re still involved in this issue. We are focused, as we have been from the start, on managing our way...

Madam Chair, the point is that this bridge is getting done. It is going to be one of the most impressive pieces of infrastructure we have in the North. I can tell you from my experience and now going on five years at the table with this project, that it is a very complex process with lots of moving parts.

We have been over all of the bumps in the road that we have had, and the hurdles we have had, and we have managed our way through them all. We’re going to do that in this case, as well, and point out how close we are to the finish line. We want to be cutting the ribbon here in November to have...