Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Transportation. I would like to follow up on my statement with regards to my take on the bridge. I have some questions for the Minister relative to the monitoring of the project by the GNWT. Since the concession agreement was signed, from the time the concession agreement was signed until the end of last summer when I believe the government took a greater interest in the management of the project, I would like to know from the Minister what kind of monitoring of the Deh Cho Bridge Project and of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation was undertaken or was being done by this government. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A project of this nature requires very strict scrutiny by all people involved. There is also the Canadian Bridge Code that has to be followed. We had people from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation that provided oversight and inspections. We had also independent engineers that provided oversight. We had our own people that were on the ground and providing checks and balances. We also, for the first year, had a team of people that worked together to review all issues and all documentation that were coming forward. We had a fairly strict oversight and inspection process on this project. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for the answer. I guess it begs the question, then, if we did have that kind of fairly large involvement in the project, if we were doing that kind of monitoring, it is no secret that this project has run into difficulties. We had problems with the contractor. We have had problems with the corporation and their management of the project. Why then did we have such great difficulties? Why are we in the situation we are in at this point? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, yes, the Member has laid out a number of issues that we have been challenged with. The design was, of course, one issue that we had to wrestle with. We had a contractor that had to be replaced. We also had a developer that had fairly limited capacity. Those are issues that we tried, for the most part, over the last while, to improve with adding resources. We have changed budgets. We have added more people that we thought we could lend to this project. We also brought in different firms that would work with the different areas in terms of enhancing this project. We felt that we made some significant changes over the first year. The second year went fairly smoothly. We had one big issue, of course, with one of the piers. Pier three had a bad pour and had to be redone. Things seemed to be changing. I thought we were around the corner with putting a new plan in place, a new design, a new contractor. That is where we are at right now. Of course, given that we are going to add a year or two, that adds to the interest. It also requires us to make the payments on what the lenders are going to need for their first year’s payment on the debt. There are a number of things that are out there that are adding to the project and the cost of redesign is something that was expected to lead into further significant savings. However, it did allow us to have some savings but not enough to cover what it costs to add a year to the construction terms. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for his response. I mentioned in my statement that I think that it is necessary at this point and I have to give credit to my colleague Mr. Bromley, because he was the one that first raised this in committee a while ago, but we need to have an audit to know how we got to this current situation that we are in, to determine what actual costs are, whether it is actually going to be $181 million or if all the hidden costs add up to several more million. I would like to ask the Minister if he will commit in this House to an audit of the project from its inception until to date. We need to know where we are at right now. Will he do that audit to determine how we got where we are? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, given the level of discussion in the House over the last while for the life of this project, I am not sure if the Member would be satisfied with us doing an audit on ourselves. That may be something that we need to talk further. The Auditor General has been involved and has looked at components of this project. I am assuming that the Member is talking about a full-blown audit of this project. I think that would have to come at the direction of this House or at least by the Finance Minister. It is not something I can commit to. But if the Member is satisfied, we certainly can, at the conclusion of this project, do a review of everything that has transpired, including all the numbers that have been out there in terms of budgets and actual spending. I can commit to that if that is what the Member is looking for. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I guess to clarify, I am looking for an operational audit and also a financial audit. I think, at this point, what I am looking for, and I think some other Members are as well, is to know how much we spent to date, how much we intend to spend to complete this project, because I think there are a lot of hidden costs which aren’t out there. I guess, at this point, I would say yes, I would like a full-blown operational and financial audit when the project is done, but within the near term I would like to see a compilation of all the costs that we have incurred to date. I wonder if the Minister can commit to that. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we wouldn’t want any Member to assume we have hidden costs. We do have a tracking of all our expenditures. We could provide that information. We would have to see how far along it is in terms of presentation. We could also provide the breakout of what is being planned for the dollars that we are going to be requesting through the supplementary appropriation. I have no problem to commit to that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
