Michael Miltenberger

Just a comment first about the 215s. They have had a long and honourable history in protecting the interests of the people of the Northwest Territories. If they were a horse, we would be talking about…

---Interjection

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll go through the list and I apologize if I missed anything. To the issue of are the 802s up to the task, we’ve battle tested these planes now, not only us but other jurisdictions, but we’ve seen them firsthand in the Northwest Territories. It’s our third season, and they’ve handled everything that Mother Nature and forest fires could throw at them. They are nimble. They can operate in turn and maneuver very, very well. They are powerful. They have the distinct added advantage that they can go to shallow lakes that the 215s currently can’t. Whereas a 215 may have to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Member indicates, I think this is our third year to have seen the 802s operate under full forest fire operating conditions, under extreme forest fire operating conditions, especially last summer. They have performed admirably. The 802s would equal the impact of the four 215s that we do currently have. The four 215s, which I point out are probably 60 years old, roughly, burn fuel that is going to become obsolete in the not-too-distant future. There’s three years left on the current contract. We have at least two instances and one near incident where we actually...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For projects over $50 million, the policy requires us to look at whether the P3 approach is a viable approach to be considered, and we have done that. The business case has been done and the assessment comes in that yes, it is a viable project and the business case is there under the P3 approach, hence the consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As with all projects, Public Works will be managing the infrastructure project itself, per se, but clearly when the value for money, the issue comes as we proceed with the P3 and that is where we finally go and the prices come in way off the mark, then I will have to look very carefully at the cause of that.

This is not a project that is a cost-plus where money is not an object. It is $350 million. So if that includes looking at other ways of building the project, of course we will look at that. We want to get the best, highest quality project that we can on budget and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unless there are specific questions further to the fairly comprehensive response from Minister Abernethy, a lot of mine would just be a repetition. So, we could have that discussion. We do have the policy and we are setting up the P3 corporation. A P3 approach is recognized and encouraged in most jurisdictions, and in this case they’ve done the work, they’ve set a business case, we submitted that last March to committee and that says that the P3 approach is viable and makes sense. As Minister Abernethy said, we’re proceeding down that path. No final determination has...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we do with all major expenditures like this, we’ll have full engagement with committee on a go-forward basis, especially given the approach being contemplated and the dollar amount on the table.

Mr. Chairman, that is not in fact the case. We are looking at a P3 procurement approach, first because our policy obligates us to for projects over $50 million. We had a lot of discussion around this whole P3 approach around the bridge, which wasn’t actually a P3 project. It is a recognized, valuable method of building infrastructure that’s used out around the world and across Canada. Issues like public interest are paramount. The value for money has to be demonstrable. Appropriate public control and ownership, as the Minister of Health has said, will be preserved. We have to have a clear...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We brought in some professionals on this and they did a survey of the landscape. While there are clearly incidents where things maybe didn’t work according to plan, there are also many instances when they did. They looked at all of those issues, they looked at what was being proposed here, the type of projects, and when they came back with their recommendation, it said that from the balance of all these factors that there is a business case to be made for this project to proceed as a P3.

Keeping in mind all the considerations that have been talked about here today, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Public Accounts 2013-2014.”