Mr. Speaker, the Premier has sort of inferred that he doesn’t like the idea of this debate. I can certainly understand why. It’s not a debate that he could actually win, because he says that we did not ask for the updated cost/benefit analysis and we didn’t pass any motions in this House asking for the concession agreement.
I’m looking at Hansard from May 10, when Mr. Ramsay states that it is very important that the government shares the information with the Members of the House so that we can ask questions so we can access the risk to the government, speaking of the Deh Cho Bridge project. That was on May 7. At that time the former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Menicoche, said “Yes, we can provide that to the Member and to the committee at the appropriate time.” Well, the appropriate time was about two weeks ago, and this was in May 2007.
How can the Premier stand here today and say that they were forthcoming with information as a government when we asked in May and we just got the agreement two weeks ago? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, maybe I’m having a dream and I’ve woken up in the 15th Assembly. This is the 16th Assembly. Members have asked for information, I’ve committed to that information, and we’ve provided that information. Thank you.
Let’s talk about what’s happened in this Assembly. We got elected on October 1. We came back here and stood up in this House and asked question after question after question about the Deh Cho Bridge project. The Premier stood up and answered those questions, and not once did he mention the fact that the concession agreement had already been signed on September 28.
I don’t know exactly how stupid he thinks we are. However, I want to tell you that I wouldn’t even have asked him the questions if I had known a concession agreement had been signed on September 28.
Yeah, let’s talk about the 16th Assembly. When did the Premier think he might tell us that the concession agreement had already been signed after we asked all those questions at our very first sitting of this Legislature?
Yes, questions about the 16th Legislative Assembly. The fact is that Members did not ask the question itself. I responded to questions that were given to me in this House when the Members asked for the specific information, worked with the departments, brought that information, and had that delivered to committee.
In light of the absolute barrage of questions that the Premier was asked, and given that he had full knowledge that the concession agreement had already been signed, I want to ask the Premier did he not feel that he had any duty to the Members of this House to just inform us of this very significant milestone which had been passed on the Deh Cho Bridge project: that the concession agreement had, in fact, already been signed? We had to find this out weeks and weeks later, after asking all session.
Did the Premier feel no obligation to open this and transparently share something that significant with Members of this House when we didn’t ask exactly that question?
Mr. Speaker, if we go back to Hansard, the first session that we had was in late November — or was it mid-November? — shortly after our election. I was just voted in as Premier of the Northwest Territories, had not yet assigned portfolios the first couple of days of session, and I took every question from every area of concern in the Northwest Territories.
I can’t go back to all the other types of questions, but I did my best to answer Members in that area. As I already stated when this previous question was asked of me later on, if I didn’t jump to the conclusion that that was the specific item the Member wanted, I apologized for that. Do I need to apologize again?
Now we’re talking about the 16th Assembly. On October 19, the Premier stated:
“The contracts that are being signed are not from the Government of the Northwest Territories; they are through the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation group as well as potential constructors of the bridge…we know that there’s a commitment to start some of the early earthwork process. But ultimately no contracts or, from our government side, no liability is being held until we know, for example, they get the permits from the federal government….”
I mean, that’s pretty clear — no contracts, no liability. And that was on October 19, 2007. How would the Premier respond to that?
Mr. Speaker, we need to go back a little bit and see what the actual question was that I responded to. The questions were about actual contracts for doing the work for ordering materials. That’s my understanding. I have to qualify this; otherwise, I’ll be thrown out for saying something or committing to something else.
I’ve been trying to respond to Members of this House the majority of the time on this specific project. I’ve looked at the information, I’ve provided what knowledge I had and what issues I was trying to address on the day, and I’ve responded since then when we’ve got the specifics and provided that information. So what more do the Members want in the sense of this specific area? We’ve given all the update information.
And yes, Mr. Speaker, as the 16th Legislative Assembly, we are, in a sense, married to this project. We’re going through this process. But I think we need to take a step back from here and look at the bigger picture of the Northwest Territories. Are we saying that as the Northwest Territories, we’re not prepared to look at any major infrastructure for the North, so that we can see the dreams for the development for the North happen in a more proactive way than it has in the past?
