Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my immediate right is deputy minister of Transportation, Russell Neudorf. To my far right is director of airports, Delia Chesworth; and to my left, legislative counsel, Thomas Druyan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to introduce the proposed amendments in this bill, which will help facilitate the daily administration and operation of the bridge near Fort Providence, the Deh Cho Bridge, and improve upon the enforcement of the Deh Cho Bridge Act and the regulations.

After two years of operating the bridge, the department has identified areas to improve and expand upon inspection and investigation authorities held by our highway transport officers. These proposed amendments will give our HTOs the authority to adequately enforce the act, regulations and bridge tolling...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to introduce Bill 61, An Act to Amend the Public Airports Act, which proposes to address six areas in legislation aimed at improving how we operate airports throughout the NWT and to clarify sections of the Public Airports Act.

The bill proposes to increase the duration of leases on Commissioner’s public airports land from 20 years to 30 years so tenants will be able to amortize leasehold improvements over longer periods. Such extensions will provide consistency with maximum amortization periods typically offered by lending agencies.

The bill proposes...

We’re not paying it because we don’t have the proper documentation indicating that there was a contract between Rowe’s Construction and we’re not paying it because the money that we got was not for this. The money that we got from the New Brunswick government was to pay for the deficiencies of the bridge, not to cover unfinished business by ATCON that wasn’t paid out. We don’t have any written authorization from ATCON. We don’t have any documentation. There is really nothing there other than the discussions that Mr. Rowe has been having with DOT, and based on that we are continuing to work on...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would look at that. Right now we’re moving forward with the three demerit points, a suspension of fines, and the main purpose of the act is to stop distracted driving. It’s not to punish people, it’s to stop distracted driving. So, if we had no distracted driving, the act would be a good act.

What we’re doing is we’re putting forward a bill that we think is going to do that at this point. If it doesn’t work, then we’re prepared to look at other options as well.

For the abandoned vehicles, I’ll ask Mr. Loutitt to take that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Ruskin built a bridge for us. We had to pay them. Thank you.

Those are good points. I thank the Member. We will take that into consideration when we’re rolling out the new act.

Because we need to provide the documentation to the Government of New Brunswick that will validate the payment. This is not exactly what we got the money for. We got that money to do the deficiencies on the bridge, pay for the deficiencies on the bridge. There is more work to be done on the bridge. There are more deficiencies. This money wasn’t given to us so that we could pay companies that didn’t get all of the payments for the work that they’ve done with a company that went bankrupt.

The demerits would be the same; the suspension would be the same; the fine would be doubled from $322 to $644.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The deficiencies, I think that seems to be the key here. The work was done by ATCON. The money given to us from the New Brunswick government was to clean up the deficiencies. There are deficiencies on the work that Rowe’s had performed for ATCON, as well, and that’s part of the work that we are doing. But the deficiencies to finish the bridge, we have about $700,000 to $800,000 worth of deficiencies still on the bridge. We have about $750,000 in that account. We want to use that money to finish the deficiencies.