Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. I think the Minister has, obviously, some explaining to do to both Members of the House and the public when it was just a couple of weeks ago that the Minister stood up in this House and replied to some questions that I had for him at the time, stating that the new design on the Deh Cho Bridge would be less expensive to construct and they were still under the impression that the project could get completed on budget even though there was a delay of one year. Here we are two weeks later and the Minister is stating now that the project is going to cost $182 million.
There still is no, in my view, firm design. There still is no signed contract with the new contractor. I am just wondering how the Minister can explain that he can put a number out there like $182 million with all these moving parts still in existence. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; two weeks ago we were very confident that we had the makings of a deal that was going to fall within the target and goal of what we had set as a budget. Since then, there have been more negotiations with the contractor that we are talking about. In fact, I should mention that who we are negotiating with right now, today, yesterday had brought back new numbers. We have all the moving parts, as the Member has indicated, together, including lost revenue because of the delay in the construction schedule of one year, the deferral of the design, of course, and things of that nature and outstanding claims that we have to settle. It is summed up to a number, an excess of what we budgeted by $15 million. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in the press release that the government has issued this morning, they also talk about a new project management team. I would like to ask the Minister what is the future of the former project management team on the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as a result of a number of discussions for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, we felt that we needed to bring in a new team to provide project management on this job. We have since agreed and notified the people that were on the project management team that we will be bringing in a new company and new players to fill those roles. That has been accepted. We are now in the process of having discussions, how to do the transition and continue to make sure that we have a smooth transition as we move forward. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am just wondering why it has gotten to this stage, why something wasn’t done further in the past. We should have done something about this a long time ago. I would like to ask the Minister, is it going to cost the Government of the Northwest Territories anything to remove the players from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and that former project management team? Are we going to be paying anything for that? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I can’t predict what will happen in the future, but as of now, our agreement is to terminate the services after transition period, after certain tasks are completed, which will happen in the next little while. The Member is correct; there was concern and he’s raised it in this House that there was concern over how the project was being managed. We also had concerns some time ago. We felt that we needed to wait and see how things unfolded. We also needed a pause in construction so that we can start the next phase before we sat down and had those discussions with the Bridge Corporation. This is what we have done. It has resulted in a new project management team. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess ultimately we are going to be paying the price for the poor performance of that project management team. I would like to ask the Minister today whether or not the Government of the Northwest Territories is going to have any legal recourse with that former project management team on the increased costs and the failure to deliver this project, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I think all the players involved feel they have a recourse in terms of legal challenges. We are no different. I am assuming that we will see the fallout as the dust settles on this project. At this point, we are focussed on trying to get the bridge completed. We are really in a compressed time frame to get that done. We are, as I have stated, negotiating right now with a number of the players, the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, the lenders and also a company that we hope is not going to be influenced by our discussion here today, but we are very close to concluding those discussions. We feel that these numbers are solid. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
