Mr. Chairman, notwithstanding Rule 6(1), I move a motion that Committee of the Whole continues sitting beyond the hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of continuing and concluding consideration of Tabled Document 2-17(2), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
---Carried
We will continue with general comments. Sorry; details. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have listened to the concerns by Mr. Bromley. It is very similar to the concerns of his colleague Ms. Bisaro. The one thing that strikes me is that if we were sitting in Yellowknife and it had no road south and we were debating the merits and benefit of a road connection, we would be having an entirely different debate or the debate would be ones where we would be playing different roles. So I think we have to keep in mind that there are all of these benefits that are going to come when you build roads. Diefenbaker had it right on the money: roads to resources to open up country. We have to make the first step. We will come back with the information. We will address the questions so that we can make an informed decision. We have committed to do that. It is critical that we, as a Legislature, allow this project to have the latitude to be able to do the work to find out if it proceeds at all. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley, do you have anything to conclude?
Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would suggest that in the scenario the Minister paints, if Yellowknife did not have a road, undoubtedly this road would not be happening in that scenario and under these conditions, and I agree with that. That is the oversight and accountability that we are trying to bring from this side of the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to respond to Mr. Bromley’s comments. Again, I respect Mr. Bromley’s position. I don’t agree with everything and his arguments on why he should not support the $2.5 million, but the way I look at it, and again people are trying to make parallels with the Deh Cho Bridge and it’s just not an accurate depiction of this project because we have a partner that’s putting in $150 million into this project and that’s the federal government. We didn’t have that with the Deh Cho Bridge project.
Again, I think this project is developing our territory from a number of perspectives. The federal government being our partner, they’re interested in sovereignty. Arctic sovereignty has been a big issue. That’s at the forefront of the decision to support the construction of the highway, social development of the region and also economic development. Those real jobs that Mr. Bromley talks about, they are going to be born out of resource extraction of some type. In the Beaufort-Delta, oil and gas development, both onshore and offshore, that’s where the real jobs are and that’s where the real development in that region of our territory is going to take place and that’s how it’s going to happen. This road is just a part. It will make up the foundation of the potential economic prosperity of the Beaufort-Delta.
So, again, I respect Mr. Bromley’s thoughts, but I tend to disagree with him. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Continuing with detail. We have Ms. Bisaro.
We’ve still got time?
Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to respond to some of the comments that I didn’t get a chance to talk to earlier and at the outset.
I want to state that I take offense to the Minister of Finance’s remarks that suggest that I am biased. I certainly am not. I am required to hold this government accountable and that’s what I’m doing. I don’t feel that I am opposing or supporting any particular project except that it is in the best interests of the people of the Northwest Territories and I would ask that the Minister reconsider his statement.
It is important that the government be opposed if, it’s my belief, we’re not doing things in the right way, and that’s what I’m doing. There are times when we have to agree to disagree and that’s what you guys are doing, but I have yet to hear what the Minister mentioned the other day that’s going to give me comfort relative to the process and the timing questions.
I still don’t understand why we had no knowledge that this information or this request was coming forward several months ago. I believe firmly that there should have been some indication that this was where the project was going. I want to say that I appreciate that due diligence is required for this project and I think I would be even more upset if that wasn’t what was being asked for.
But again, my main concern is that we are being asked to approve something in very short order. We’re being asked to approve something, which in my mind is being thrust upon us and where we don’t have adequate information to make a reasoned decision and what I consider an adequate or a positive decision. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of course, if the Member has taken offense by any of my comments, my intent was not to offend her. I acknowledge the fact that I appreciate her support and she does ask tough questions. I mean, there’s no doubt about it, she’s good at it. So we owe her the response that she’s asked for and which is what we’re asking for. So I meant no offense to the Member. Whatever comment specifically offended her, I’d be happy to withdraw those. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for his comments. I think he probably well knows what comment it was that got me a little excited.
Again, I have to state that one of the things that I’d thought of the other day when we were in committee, we’ve received a huge amount of information from the Minister of Transportation during briefings and there’s been an awful lot of questions asked and the same questions were asked here today. But I’ve found the Minister saying the same thing over and over and over in an effort to convince me without providing me with new information. Without adequately answering my questions is not convincing me and giving me comfort and that’s where I’m at.
So I accept the Minister’s offer to withdraw his remarks that I am biased. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the Members that feel we’re rushing into this, this project was initiated by the leadership in the Beaufort-Delta, by the Inuvialuit, the community of Tuktoyaktuk and the Town of Inuvik. The PDR work was done and it was initiated by the region. It was a regional effort to get the PDR work. That work was done by the communities that are up there. If we have a $150 million commitment from the federal government and it’s a priority of the government to build the highway between Tuk and Inuvik, what do Members want us to do when we have opportunity? Do they want us to sit on our hands and not take that opportunity, or do they want us to do something and move things forward?
This is an effort to make progress, to move forward, to get the work done so construction can start on the highway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk this coming winter. That’s where we’re at and that’s what we’re asking Members to support.
To Ms. Bisaro’s comment about answering questions, I’d be more than happy to answer any questions and we can go back and forth. Ask me a question and I’ll answer it and then we can get that done. Let’s get it done. I want you to have the comfort that I have answered every question that you have so that we can move forward. Let’s do that. This is the forum we can do that in, let’s do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we’re back to the horns of a dilemma where we’re being asked to answer questions that we can only answer once we’ve done the work. The detailed questions about permafrost, geotechnical work. The cost-benefit analysis has not been completed and you have our full commitment. We the government and the Minister have disclosed all of the information we have available and trying to make the case to justify getting the funds to in fact do the work to answer those very questions that the Member has raised so vigorously in the House here. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the Minister of Transportation, why did we not hear anything about this extraordinary cost last fall? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It was there but we weren’t in a position to make any decisions to move on it until we had advanced our discussions on the borrowing limit far enough where we were prepared to make a commitment. So that is how this whole process transpired, but the intent, if all went well to do the work, that information, as far as I’m aware… I’ll ask Mr. Aumond to clarify the detail. I’m of the understanding that it was there.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister is correct; the department, I believe, always knew it had to do the work. But as the Minister of Finance had referenced, we weren’t in a position to advance expenditures to complete that due diligence until the borrowing limit discussions had advanced to the point where we felt confident that we could proceed. So it’s an unfortunate set of circumstances as the timing didn’t work out in such a way that it would normally. But given the circumstances, I think that the department had advanced this work to the point as fast as it could, given where we were with the borrowing limit. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the explanation, but I have to say I’m afraid I can’t buy it. We are constantly, I shouldn’t say constantly, but very often as Members we are provided with information which cannot be shared with the public. We’re given information on a confidential basis to let us know what the government is doing or what the government is thinking about doing to get our opinion on whether or not we think the government should go forward, a yea or a nay or to provide some input. I find it really hard to believe that this government, knowing that this project was possibly going to be there, couldn’t have given Members a heads-up. That’s where I’m coming from. It goes to the difficulty that Regular Members and Cabinet have with communicating with each other. It’s a trust issue and I appreciate that, but that’s basically, I shouldn’t say that’s my only concern but that’s a lot of my concern. It underlines a lot of my concern that we are, as I think somebody’s already stated, very often presented with a fait accompli: Here it is, this is what we’re going to do, it’s really important that we do it right now, just trust us, everything will be okay. I can’t do that.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could just restate this sequence: Without the comfort that we achieve on the borrowing limit, any discussion was academic. It was a moot point because without the money it wouldn’t have been advanced. We weren’t in a position to bring it forward for consideration until we reached a point in our discussion on the borrowing limit that we had that comfort. There is no attempt to mislead, as the Member’s indicating. It’s unfortunate that she’s got these trust issues, but clearly we’ve been trying to follow this process to the T. Once again I will ask Mr. Ramsay if he would want to supplement that.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a lot to add to that but we have the $150 million commitment from the federal government. We had the $1 million notional amount in the capital plan. We’re going to move forward with the project. I don’t think that was a secret to anybody. We wanted to move forward with the project. Being that it was tied to the borrowing limit, there were some constraints on the timing.
I just want to assure Ms. Bisaro and others that as this moves forward, we need to work together. You have my assurance that we will work together. I’ll get you the answers you need. The timing’s tight but this is a fluid process. It’s a huge project and we’d be fooling ourselves if we thought $1 million was going to cover our upfront costs on a potentially $250 million project. We knew it was going to cost us more, it’s just happening quickly. It may be happening a bit too quickly for some Members’ liking, but that’s the nature of this. It’s moving quickly, we need to act on it, and we need to get out in front of it and do the work. That’s what we’re trying to do.
I want to assure the Member that we will work together every step of the way and there will be many other junctures along the road here or points along the road where we will have to come back to committee and tell you exactly what we’re doing, and we intend to do that. We’re not trying to hide anything. We’re not trying to fast-track anything. This has been in play for awhile now.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Moving on to detail we have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although I’m not as excitable, perhaps, as my colleague Ms. Bisaro, I still do have my standards and I’d like to start by asking the Minister, who withdrew his remarks specifically for Ms. Bisaro alone, in relation to his statement that if I was, if this was Yellowknife I’d be supportive in putting a motion of non-support, which I have not expressed. My expression has been non-support of this $2.5 million for this year specifically, for this project. I’d happily look for a good way to spend those dollars, in my mind. If he’d care to broaden his withdrawal of the remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m well familiar with the taste of humble pie and crow if it will aid the debate. I’ll happily withdraw the comments that Mr. Bromley would not support a road out of Yellowknife if there was not one.
In the interest of debate, I prefer not to go to rules, so I’m happy to move on.
I’d like to perhaps just sum up my input with the following: First of all, we do seem to be so rushed to get this baby birthed that we are guaranteeing a premature baby with all the challenges associated. I think we need to go forward but we need to go forward with good and thorough planning reassured by a reasonable time schedule. Unlike the Minister of Transportation, I do not see that as a waste of time. His reference to taking a reasonable amount of time, that’s not a waste of time, in my mind. Let’s complete due diligence next winter and then debate our opportunity and capacity to go forward on a sound basis.
We appreciate the Member’s summing up of his concerns. Of course, the government takes a different approach that time is important, that we need to do the work to get the information. As the Member for Mackenzie Delta pointed out, in actual fact, by next winter this will actually be drawing things back not one year but two. So I appreciate the Member’s comments, but as Ms. Bisaro had indicated, there will come a time when we will agree to disagree and this will be one of those times.
That concludes my comments.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Highways, not previously authorized, $2.5 million. Ms. Bisaro.
COMMITTEE MOTION 7-17(2):
DELETION OF $2.5 MILLION FROM
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION HIGHWAYS ACTIVITY,
DEFEATED
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that $2.5 million be deleted from the activity highways under the Department of Transportation, capital investment expenditures, not previously authorized, on page 7, for the provision of funding to undertake engineering and environmental assessment work for the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway project.
A motion is on the floor and is being distributed now. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly support this motion and I think, at the same time, I would like to see us direct Cabinet to look into some productive ways to spend these dollars, if we do indeed have these dollars.
I didn’t get a chance to or didn’t remember to ask whether these were theoretical dollars, debt dollars we were spending or not. Dollars we don’t have. I think that’s one of the important aspects of it.
The other thing is I think we need, before we go down this road, an appreciation of the cost-benefit analysis side of the equation. I’d like to get a briefing on that. The old document I received certainly doesn’t provide the confidence required for this expenditure. I will be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I’ve spoken all I need to speak. I think hopefully it explains why I’ve brought this motion forward. I would like to ask for a recorded vote.
The Member has requested a recorded vote. All those in favour. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did earlier this afternoon provide some committee observations. I just wanted to provide a few of my own, and seeing as how we have an opportunity to vote on this deletion, it’s probably a good time to throw them in as well.
Just quickly, the Minister did agree to look into many things, as I highlighted earlier today, and he’s giving me his nod and he’s certainly doing that. I believe he will do that as he’s agreed to follow through.
Just some of the concerns that I’ve had, which is there is a lot of good faith taken in on committee’s side of this equation whether we’re supporting this or not supporting this. Of course, we all know that if he was known as MLA Ramsay only, on this side of the House, he’d probably be having a tough time sitting where we are, accepting that a lot of this is taken strictly on good faith.
That said, a lot of the particulars that have come forward, the way I view it is this is a lot of money being invested on developing a project to the point of where we have to get to understand it, how much it will cost, how much will be involved, how we foresee it being our full expenditure. There’s a lot of work being developed out of this $2.5 million.
At this particular time I’m going to exercise a small amount of caution by saying that I will vote… It’s tricky. I’ll be voting against the motion to delete the money because I think this type of work needs to continue to go through to assess the project on a broader basis. I will say, as I did put to Mr. Ramsay in committee, that we need some clearly defined milestones to help us understand when we get a full appreciation for the picture of what it’s going to cost, how much involvement. We need to have a clear deciding point when we’re either all in or not at all. He’s agreed to come back with some of those details. I see that this money is being invested in a wise way to help develop the project to a position where we can make a formal decision on the broader issue.
I didn’t have a lot of comments but I just thought that this was probably the only time I’ll speak to it this evening and I wanted to emphasize that I will cautiously be voting for the broader project, which means I will be voting against this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’ll go back to Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion here that’s brought to the table to delete from Transportation puts the project in jeopardy. The timing is not great. The work that needs to get done for this year and next year to help us to continue this major… This is a major milestone for the Northwest Territories. We’ve been at this road for so many years. Finally the federal government has coughed up $150 million. The people in Tuktoyaktuk, the people in Inuvik went down to Ottawa and lobbied hard, schmoozing the Prime Minister, Cabinet Members to a point where the federal Cabinet said this is a priority for the government. They indicated that through the money they said they were going to give to us. I hope that we develop stringent policies or accountability, guidelines to see how other projects of this significant amount go forward.
In the Sahtu we are completing our project description reports. I know some people up there are looking forward to going through the environmental assessment and later on through securing funds, like they’re doing right now up in the Beaufort-Delta. I don’t know if that will be done in the 18th or 19th Assembly. We’ll have these kinds of discussions; the future MLAs will have this type of discussion.
The thing for me is that it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t on this project. We need to go ahead with this project. The Minister has heard us. Cabinet has heard us. Somehow they put the project together with other things in place such as the Borrowing Act because of the potential for oil and gas up in the Beaufort-Delta. I know what it’s like for people to work and not get income support. I know what it’s like for people to go to the office for income support. We had the Minister tell us that people were laying people off in the Yellowknife area and their income support shot up. I know people in my area have worked this winter and the income support payments have gone down dramatically. It’s a real fine balance of politics being played here.
I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to the Minister and say, you’re an honourable man. This is what you said you were going to do, work with us, and for your staff to do this work and to get it going. I know this kind of money can certainly be used around the region on different projects in the North. We find it like this. I know they need it in the southern area of the North. They need it here around this area here, in my region, in the Beaufort-Delta. But we are working closely with the federal government and the federal government wants this project, and we already said it in the Caucus that it’s a priority.
I think the question for me, and I’ve had some concerns, is how do we go about getting this project on the go. I didn’t expect a couple months ago when we said yes, we’ll give them a million dollars, I didn’t think that far ahead or couldn’t see that far ahead that they were going to come back with $2.5 million. I remember talking about that and my friend spoke against it, next to me. But I spoke in favour of it. I remember that day, because we had some people in the gallery who were listening to us from the Beaufort-Delta area. I firmly believe that by…(inaudible)…a million dollars, that we’re going ahead, not knowing that they were going to come back with this.
I think that’s what we need to be ready for and prepare ourselves for. This is a big project. The window of opportunity is there and we need not shut the blinds on that. For me to not support this is very difficult. I want to say, Mr. Chair, that the project needs to go and need to think the importance of this. I’m certainly looking for it in the future when the Sahtu starts construction on their roads or even the Mackenzie Delta, that we will get support. Hopefully from this we’ll learn some lessons. Because we’re certainly looking forward to roads in our area, especially now with the amount of oil and gas exploration that’s happening and potentially could happen in the years to come. Those are my comments, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I’d also like to inform the Members here today, obviously, of the use of parliamentary language and the proper etiquette moving forward. I know it’s been a long day for everyone. To the motion. I have Mr. Menicoche.
