Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some researchers from famous American universities and large management consulting firms were interested in why public sector projects sometimes fail. They studied 75 major initiatives since World War II and found that three major problems are caused with well-meaning endeavours and it caused them to fail time and time again.
The first problem is known as design free. The project looked great in theory, but when everyone supported it and it moved forward, it certainly was unworkable in the real world.
The second problem was overconfidence. No one took the possibility of failure seriously. The budget was unrealistic, the timelines were impossible, and there certainly was no backup plan.
The third problem was complacency. This is when the government does something poorly simply because that’s all it knows. It seems to me that the Deh Cho Bridge in some fashion has plugged into these plagues in one various way or the other.
Mr. Speaker, for facts here, the legislation was passed to build the bridge back in the 14th Assembly. It was hailed at that time as a great leap forward on this particular project. Then, Mr. Handley and his Cabinet in the 15th Legislative Assembly went alone and entered into a Concession Agreement at the last hours of their government as it ticked away, and, of course, the express overwhelming confidence of this project, which in essence isn’t really on record for the fact that it’s tied the hands of this government.
Now, we all know about the glitches of the Concession Agreement along with the zero support from Ottawa, which I would define is truly the real scandal. Where is Ottawa’s help on this project?
Mr. Speaker, we know that the Minister of Transportation in our 16th Assembly is working hard to help through this project with the cost overruns, and is now, through our time-tested process, as usual, is calling upon Members to ask us for $15 million more in supplementary funding. Mr. Speaker, I will agree that in no way a 9 percent increase to this project should be viewed as a scandal in any way. It should not be painted in that fact, because most of our public projects have bigger bumps that they’ve ridden through. But, Mr. Speaker, the Deh Cho Bridge Project has been fraught with challenges from the beginning. I wonder if it ever got off on the right foot.
Mr. Speaker, our choice is clear right now. We must find a way to complete this project, the challenge before us. Mr. Speaker, I’ll have questions for the Minister of Transportation about what have we learned to make sure this project does not fall off the rails again, and certainly what is being done to get money from Ottawa to help us support this project that needs to be built as infrastructure in the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
