Debates of March 23, 2010 (day 5)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Joining me at the table to my right is the deputy minister of Finance, Ms. Margaret Melhorn; to my immediate left is Minister Michael McLeod, Minister of Transportation; to my far left is Mr. Russell Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Welcome, witnesses. General comments. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First off, I do support the principle of the bridge project. I certainly believe strongly that this is the type of infrastructure that needs to be built in the Northwest Territories. I also believe strongly when I had asked last month about why haven’t we sought federal government support, why hasn’t the federal government come to the table to assist us with this project. I think that seems to be a significant gap in this process that has been happening.

Today I tabled an article from a magazine called Bridge Design and Engineering. It is a magazine from the UK. It defines itself as the definitive publication for bridge professionals worldwide and they do sort of an overview of the Deh Cho Bridge, oddly enough. It is an article called Remote Control, which I am still trying to figure out why they called the Deh Cho Bridge article a remote control. But what was interesting and stunning about this overview is it highlights a particular section of interest. It says, an independent review of the original superstructure which was done by TY Lin International identified that there were numerous deficiencies and felt that the bridge was deemed unbuildable.

Mr. Chairman, I think that really starts towards the beginning of the problem, which is ultimately the government in the 15th Assembly went forward, signed a bridge agreement, as we have all heard. It was a fixed price, fixed contract and completed design and yet that seems to be where the real problem started. I am not talking about the decision to do the bridge or not. I mean, that is a different issue altogether. Ultimately, once we were albatrossed with the deal, there seems to be problems from the bridge outwards and they just haven’t stopped.

Mr. Chairman, my opening comments are more reflective as to what are we doing with respect to stuff like that. TY Lin International is a significant corporation that reviewed the bridge. It is an extremely strong statement to say that the original bridge was unbuildable. A company doesn’t make that type of statement willy-nilly, if I may put it as simply as that.

I am kind of wondering if our government is pursuing the original bridge design or some of these costs. I think some of the costs have all been associated to the fact that the bridge was designed poorly and it was sold in a context that it was a complete design ready to go for a fixed price.

Mr. Chairman, at this point, that is really where my concern will start. Although I have a number of concerns as we go through this process, I am sure that they will all come to light through that.

I would like to hear more about how the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation will be involved and what role they will play. I would like to hear more from the Minister when we get into this concession agreement and how will it be inactive when it relates to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation.

One of the things I did was when I pulled the Deh Cho Bridge Act the other day, I was curious to find out if any of the regulations at this point have been drawn up. If they had been drawn up, I certainly would like to hear a little more about that.

Mr. Chairman, just for opening comments, I think my real concern will begin with the fact that an independent review had, I think, hit the nail right on the head, which is the fact that this government accepted a contract, signed a contract on good faith that the bridge was a complete bridge ready to go and we find out later it was not. We spent a lot of time, a lot of delays associated with money and a lot of frustration that was caused throughout this House.

I still believe in the bridge project in principle. I think that it will provide a significant legacy infrastructure for this Territory that I do believe needs to be built. I wonder if one of our fundamental problems have to do with the design of the bridge and us accepting that contract under that theoretic good faith that it was ready to go. I would certainly hope that either the Minister of Transportation or, of course, the Premier, who is acting on behalf of the Finance Minister I believe, will assure me that our government is taking appropriate steps to pursue the original bridge designer, who I think is one of the fundamental problems of this.

Notwithstanding that, I certainly think that the price our government did sign on to this project was certainly outrageous and there certainly could have been more ways to work this project. Setting the size and the price of the bridge aside, it really comes down to the bridge being designed with significant fault and are we pursuing that at this time. I’ll leave that as opening comments. I will certainly have questions as we proceed through.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll be happy to provide some opening comments on the Supplementary Appropriation No. 2 that’s before us. I’m having a great deal of difficulty with supporting this. I’ll say that up front. I have been critical of the project from the very beginning. I mentioned earlier today in my Member’s statement that I just see one bad decision being compounded by another bad decision. For the life of me I cannot understand why we’re not going to complete an audit of the project. That is going through the books of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, going through all the records of the engineers, getting a full stock of where we’ve been in an effort to try to move forward.

I’m not interested in going back in time and going over who did what and when, and playing pin the blame on the donkey. I’m not trying to do that. What we have to do is try to move the project forward in a coordinated way. I know the Department of Transportation is committed to doing that. You see the project management team that’s been assembled. It’s a comprehensive one. It’s a good one. It is a good team. But in saying that it’s a good team, why wouldn’t we, when a project is basically stopped midway...and I debated this with the Minister who says it’s 50 percent done, but I don’t quite agree with that. I don’t think it’s close to 50 percent. When a project is stopped mid-stroke you should at the very least find out how you got to where you got to before you enter into any contract and commit any more public dollars to a project like the Deh Cho Bridge Project.

Why we would be in such a rush to get into a sole-sourced negotiated contract with one company, again, for the life of me, I do not understand. I mentioned it earlier and that’s probably why I’m not going to end up supporting this, because on principle I think it has to go through a complete audit. We have to get a handle on where it’s been in order to move it forward. I don’t see it happening and I don’t understand how you can do an audit with one hand and sign a contract with another hand and the new contractor try to carry out the work when there’s all this other stuff hanging in the background. It’s not something I think is a good decision. With all due respect to the Minister and the government, I disagree with them 100 percent that they’re doing the right thing by negotiating a contract with one company on this bridge, given the history.

Given the history we obviously didn’t learn anything through the exercise with ATCON. That was a negotiated sole-sourced contract with ATCON as well; supposedly a fixed-price contract. It never ended up being that way and even the numbers are moving around as we speak. The numbers we talked about, and the Minister knows what those numbers are, when he came before us, there’s a difference between what we were told was going to be signed with Ruskin and what was actually signed with Ruskin. There’s a bit of a difference there. And that all happened in the past couple of weeks. What work is that for? Is that for work that we have already supposedly paid for? I think it’s for the approaches or the abutments.

Again, things are just changing. For me what this exercise is going to be about is trying to get some things lined up and try to get a chronology of events of when things were said, when things happened, and try to make some sense of it. Right now I’m at a bit of a loss as to why some things are said when they’re said and why other things are left out or omitted when I believe the government knew full well what was going on and didn’t divulge that to Regular Members.

Now, interestingly, I had some questions for the Minister of Transportation earlier about the lenders and the more I think about it, when the lenders gave the Government of the Northwest Territories, through the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, access to that construction account to the tune of about $75 million, they did so because they were interested in seeing the project move forward, like us. It was a good relationship. That relationship soured at some point in time. The lenders got so that they locked that construction account up in December of last year. No money was flowing out of that construction account. When they write letters -- I’m not sure who the letter went to, the Minister of Transportation, the Premier, or the Finance Minister – to our government, you can rest assured that somewhere in those letters it just doesn’t say N-O, you’re not getting any more money. It should specify exactly the reasons why the lenders do not want to proceed with lending money out of that construction account. I would like to at some point in time see the letters that we got back from the lenders and see exactly what they say. I think those letters would probably paint a pretty good picture of why the lenders were getting scared. Did the government act when they should have acted? Did they wait?

Here we are, it’s almost April and the big reason why the government didn’t want to go to tender on the second half of this project was all about timing. They always said it would set the project back a year. I don’t buy that it’s going to set the project back a year. I think if we had gone to tender -- and Ruskin could have rightfully bid on that contract and won the contract, who knows what would have happened -- at the end of the day I could rest assured and tell my constituents that we managed the public purse the best way that we could, we went to tender, we got the best price, we had a design that was finished and we got the work done. That’s what I want to be able to tell my constituents. I can’t tell my constituents that because I know that’s not the way things happened. We negotiated a sole-sourced contract with one company. And that number is moving. It’s a moving target. Why is it a moving target? Because I do still believe today that there are things in that design that are unfinished and are going to cost us more money as we move this project forward. I hope I’m wrong on that, I really do, but I really don’t believe that I’m going to be wrong.

I also don’t believe that the bridge is going to be constructed by November 2011. I really do not believe that. And I do not believe for one second that this bridge is going to cost the government and the taxpayers in the Northwest Territories $181 million. It is going to cost more than that. You can mark my words that it is going to cost more than that. I hope I’m wrong, but it is going to cost more than that.

There are other issues at play that I’m going to address and questions as we move forward. I want to give other Members a chance to provide some opening comments. I want to know quite specifically when the government signed a notice to award the contract to Ruskin or when the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation signed that contract, when they signed the intent to award, when they signed the notice to proceed. I want to know who signed it.

I want to know what legality the Government of the Northwest Territories has on that contract that the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation signed with Ruskin. Where do we fit in all this? I think that’s an important aspect as well. I also want to know if it’s not too late to get out, to stop what we’re doing and take stock of where we’ve been and where we need to go, and get the best price that we can. Go to the marketplace for the second half and move on. That’s what people want to see us doing. They don’t want to just see us giving out sole-sourced contracts to the closest guy there. That’s what we’re doing. It doesn’t make much sense. The only argument I can see is the fact that we might have to pay some interest, but nobody’s proven to me that going to the marketplace is going to save us $15 million or $16 million. We have to pay $8 million if it’s going to go past November 2011. That’s going to be a big issue. It’s going to go past November 2011 guaranteed. I almost guarantee you that. It’s not going to be finished by then.

I’ll have a lot of questions here and I look forward to asking them and trying to get some answers.

Next I have Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to say that I’m a little frustrated actually being here today. I’m a little frustrated that the first time that the Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly get to vote on anything on the bridge, the vote is such that we really don’t have a choice. We pretty much have to vote yes to this thing. If we don’t vote yes to this thing it’s still going to cost us the same or more money. The delays will actually, in my opinion, result in far greater expenditures than the incredibly high expenditures that we’re already dealing with today. It’s frustrating and it makes me a little angry.

I think this project has been managed poorly since day one. I think the 14th Assembly made a mistake signing the Deh Cho Bridge Act. I’m not convinced that the Deh Cho Bridge Act is a good act. If anything I hope that this Assembly and future Assemblies learn from what we’re going through today and never ever sign anything like the Deh Cho Bridge Act into existence again. It was a mistake and it’s going to cost us dearly forever.

I’m frustrated and angry that in the 15th Assembly, in the dying days of the Assembly, the Premier rushed this thing through and signed a concession agreement. It frustrates me to no end that we got stuck with this particular construction project without some reasonable and responsible decision-making beforehand.

I’m frustrated and I’m angry that the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, in my opinion, has mismanaged this file. They had the faith of this government at one point to take this forward and build a bridge in the Northwest Territories, one of the largest infrastructure projects in the history of the Northwest Territories and, quite frankly, I’m of the opinion that they blew it. I’m not convinced that the project management team had the skill to manage such a large infrastructure project, yet they were the ones that were in charge and we sat back and watched them move forward and fail miserably.

I’m frustrated that the information that we’ve asked for on a regular basis comes to us, the Minister seems confident with it and rightfully so, and then two weeks later he’s getting new information and as a result we’re getting new information. We weren’t getting consistent information from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. So I’m frustrated there as well.

And here we are today, faced with this supp that if we don’t approve it, it’s going to cost us more money in the long run. If we turn back and say to heck with the bridge, no bridge, we still have to rip those piers out of the water, put it back to the state it was in, and then there are penalties we’re going to have to pay and all sorts of things we’re going to have to pay. It’s probably going cost us more to rip that bloody thing out of the water than it is to actually go forward and finish the construction of this thing.

So here we are. We have no choice. In my opinion we have to support this supp. From what I’ve read and understand, it’s not really today if things go smoothly – and, God, let’s hope that they do -- if things go smoothly, it’s not really going to cost us any more tomorrow other than the $15 million than we had planned originally. It’s going to cost us our ferry operations, it’s going to cost us the $2 million a year, which we knew about all along, and it’s going to cost us some operation money, which we knew about all along. I don’t see anything changing, other than the fact that now the money has to flow through us.

I think Cabinet, the Premier, the Minister, have a responsibility here to make sure that the people of the Northwest Territories understand what is happening with respect to this supp and how it’s going to impact us. Some questions have been asked earlier today and I’m glad they were asked and I’m glad they were answered. I’m not sure the answers were as clear as the people of the Northwest Territories deserve and I would like to seek some additional clarity as we move forward. I will be trying to ask the questions in a certain way that we can hopefully get some answers later on today when we get into the detail.

But to begin with, I’ve had some people talk to me about their frustration with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, and clearly, as you can tell, I’m frustrated with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. Are they going to be getting any profits out of this as we move forward? I mean, we’ve now taken over this, we’ve now taken on the debt, it’s our project, it’s our bridge. There are a lot of people who have told me that they don’t want the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, which so brutally managed this thing to begin with, to, you know, get a significant amount of profits. I understand that they do have some equity and that there should be a little return on equity, but we should be careful how much equity or how much profit they get out of this project, because it will be offensive to a lot of people who watched this project struggle and struggle and struggle.

I want the Premier to help the people understand the real impact this could have on our borrowing limit, and there has been some suggestions or some answers to that today, but I’d like it to be broken down into as simple a language as we can so that the people really understand what this could do to our borrowing limit today, tomorrow, five years from now.

One of the most important things to me is I’m not convinced that the project management team of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation had the skill, like I’ve said already, to manage a project of this magnitude. I want to know, and I want the Premier and the Minister to make it clear to the people of the Northwest Territories, the qualifications of our new project management team. I don’t 100 percent agree with my colleague Mr. Ramsay. I think this bridge can come in on time, and I think it can come in on the budget allocated, assuming that our project management team has the capacity, the knowledge, skills and ability to handle a megaproject of this size. I want you to tell me about our new project management team, and I want you to tell me how they meet those knowledge, skills, abilities and qualifications to manage a project of this size. And if they do, if they are the experts that I hope they are, I believe that we can come in on budget and I believe that we can get this project done on time, because if we don’t, the ramifications are significant, as Mr. Ramsay pointed out. If we’re late, it’s a million dollars a year, $8 million a year on top of what we’re spending already. That’s very risky, and you guys don’t have a lot of time to get this done and get this done right.

I talked a little bit about the timeline. I want to know, you know, is the timeline your timeline, is the timeline the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation’s timeline, or is the timeline a new project management timeline, this new group, the Associated Engineering Group who is going to be project managing this. Is that time realistic to those experts? And if it isn’t, we need to know, and we need to know right now, because it might affect our vote on this particular supp.

I also want to know about cost control. I believe experts can probably manage the cost, but I want you to talk a little bit to us -- and I’ll be asking questions when we get into the detail -- about some of the cost control measures that are in place. How are we going to ensure that the build is managed and controlled and that the costs are managed and controlled better than they were in the past when the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation was running it, where, in my opinion, they weren’t managed all that well, otherwise we wouldn’t have had to come up with a $15 million supp on a project that had a fixed cost to begin with.

There are a lot of problems here. I’m frustrated. I’m angry that I have to vote on a supp where there’s really no choice but to support the darn thing, otherwise costs are going to flare up even higher. When we get into the detail I’m going to ask some questions, and I’d like some plain English answers for the people in the Northwest Territories who, in my opinion, deserve clear, concise answers on this bridge. Thank you.

Next I have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, don’t feel that this bridge, never felt that this bridge was a benefit to anyone that I represent in this Legislative Assembly. However, from the very outset I initially believed that this government was in for the amount that was guaranteed to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in the concession agreement of something in the neighbourhood of $9 million to $10 million. I initially believed that. I didn’t know at the very beginning, in October 2007 when I was elected and there was discussion on the Deh Cho Bridge, that this government had guaranteed the loan of $165 million. That wasn’t made to clear, to me anyway. I don’t know how clear that was to anyone else in the House. However, to me, from what I heard in the House, in exchanges I heard in the House, it was a $9.5 million loan guarantee was what this government was in for.

Now I find out that we’re actually in it for the full $165 million. I guess, you know, it should have been actually something that I could have figured out myself, actually, because the equity partner, the private partner didn’t have any equity. Therefore, how could a company without equity borrow $165 million to build a piece of infrastructure that really has a questionable return on investment? So questionable, in fact, the government would have to support the operations of the bridge by using all of the money that is now being spent on ferry operations and the operation and construction of the winter road that goes across the Mackenzie now at this point.

Now the bridge is at $181 million and on February 1st, I believe it was around February 1st, between the 29th of January and February 1st, this government returned to members in Priorities and Planning for a supplementary appropriation of $15 million. At that point my question was are we beyond the point of no return and should we stop the construction of the Deh Cho Bridge, pull the piers out or leave the piers in for maybe potential future construction; however, at that point, abandon the project. However, it appeared as though the costs at that time, which appeared to be fairly significant for getting nothing, were, I believe, well over $100 million already. So it seemed as though we were beyond the point of no return already in February when the last budget session started. We were advised that the project was now 50 percent complete at that time. The project now has four more piers, and we heard that it’s 50 percent complete now.

I’m not sure that the information that we went with on February 1st was exactly 100 percent accurate; at least it wasn’t in my mind. I still, like my colleague Mr. Abernethy, feel that we have no options. I think our option to stop at this point would probably do further financial damage to the Government of the Northwest Territories than proceeding. However, I think it’s going to cost more than what is estimated at this point.

I’m no expert in bridge building, but I do see the trend going from what the initial cost was, I believe, in 2004, of about $52 million was the budget. It’s gone from that to a signing of $65 million to $165 million to $181 million. Now we’re finally out of the water and we are going to be essentially building the bridge over top of the piers at this point.

I said it before back on February 1st that I felt that this bridge would cost a lot more than what is budgeted at this time. I still think it will. In the best-case scenario it doesn’t cost any more. However, we are taking on a major long-term debt. I do believe that the Government of the Northwest Territories builds infrastructure, borrows the money to build infrastructure and then quickly, with surplus dollars in the immediate years preceding the completion of infrastructure, starts to pay it back so that at some point it is still potentially possible for the government to reduce its debt down to zero. It is still potentially possible. This makes it not possible unless we pay huge penalties. So we are kind of into this for a very long term.

I will question the government when I have an opportunity to. I am very interested in why the loan is structured the way the loan is structured. I am interested in why the government was not able to negotiate a term shorter than 35 years. I am not talking about the full amortization period here, Mr. Chairman, I am talking about the term of the loan. The fact that the amortization is 35 years and the term is 35 years meaning that at no point during the 35 years of the loan does the term actually expire and the government has the opportunity to renegotiate this loan under better circumstances. I am curious about why the government is not able to do that when we have an Aa1 credit rating. If that is something that is supposed be positive -- I am assuming that it is positive -- I will be concentrating on that because, like I said, the best-case scenario is we have major impacts for our government to provide infrastructure for the rest of the Northwest Territories. It has a major impact upon that.

As a representative of small communities like many of us around the table that don’t have infrastructure in place for our communities, we probably are not going to get it. That is because the money or the credit or the limits of our ability to provide more infrastructure to communities will be limited. We will be negatively impacted by the cost of this bridge even in the best-case scenario when this bridge comes in at $181 million. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. General comments. Next I have Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I feel like I have already said so much about the Deh Cho Bridge. It is probably the single topic that I have spoken to most in this Legislature in my 15 years that I have been an MLA. I don’t know what good it is to rehash everything that has already been brought up by other Members here today except I do feel obligated to my constituents to be on the record in this matter.

I think Mr. Abernethy did an excellent job of summarizing the situation where we find ourselves today.

Mr. Chairman, if we could argue that the bridge over the Mackenzie River is a useful piece of infrastructure that has merit, I guess the thing about the entire process that has been the most offensive to me as a Member of this Legislature, as an elected member, would be sheer inability to get information in a timely manner that would have normally been involved, if this would have been available, if this process had been a normal capital planning and capital project process. I think that has been the most frustrating. We are trying to do our job as MLAs and to be accountable to the public. This is a piece of public infrastructure. I could go back at the many turns in the road, the many junctures where we tried to get information and the fact that it was the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation that was acting essentially as an agent for this project was the shield or the veil or the barrier that was put up to us that did not allow us that kind of scrutiny that we would normally apply in doing a good job of doing what we do, and that is to be accountable. That is one of the most frustrating things for me.

Would we have voted to spend $165 million of our capital on the Deh Cho Bridge had this not been done through this Deh Cho Bridge Corporation Act, and had this not come about the way that it did would we as a government have put ourselves in the position where we would have wanted to build something like this?

I think my colleague Mr. Beaulieu said that perhaps we wouldn’t have put this much of our capital budget into one project. Perhaps we would have spread it around to more communities, to more different types of projects, because $165 million or $185 million certainly represents a lot of capital infrastructure in a lot of places had we not done this.

But having said that, we are where we are today. We can’t change the past now.

It would be really sad going forward if this bridge turns out to have some structural problem with it. I think that would be the absolute insult on injury in this case, but we are assured by the Department of Transportation officials that every reasonable effort is being made to ensure the quality of the construction of this and that all industry standards are being adhered to.

As someone said, we are not bridge engineers. We are completely lay people when it comes to that kind of expertise. We are heavily relying on the commitment and on the word of the Minister of Transportation and his officials when they tell us that everything is above-board and everything is to the highest standards for quality. Because that would be quite unbearable to the people of the Northwest Territories to not only have a project that perhaps was not our priority and was not our way that we would have spent this money, but to have something that would be defective in some way going forward would be just an absolute shame.

I have absolutely no evidence that there is such a problem, but, as I said, we find ourselves where we are today. As I said in my Member’s statement today, one of the redeeming qualities of this project, when we build a school or we build a hospital or build other types of infrastructure in the Northwest Territories, there is no way of generating revenue off of those. Those are straight outlay for capital and ongoing O and M. One of the redeeming qualities I suppose, if there are any of this project, is that if the traffic continues and if the tolls are collected, this debt can be paid off in a businesslike way for this piece of infrastructure. That is one thing that does make it unique. I hope the trucks keep rolling. I used to take the position that I didn’t support the bridge, but, well, as long as the people in Yellowknife will pay for it, I guess I could maybe just not lay awake at night and worry about it quite so much.

I always said it wasn’t going to impact the financial standing or situation of the rest of the people of the Northwest Territories, but if the plan going forward goes awry in any way, if there are problems with the bridge, if our projections for total revenues are wrong, I guess it will require everyone’s participation to now be involved in this project.

I suppose at some point in time there would have been a desire on the part of the people of the Northwest Territories to have a bridge over the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence. There are issues of inflation. There are issues of global warming that may have impacted the length of the season when we could have an ice road across the Mackenzie River. There are things that maybe hopefully we will look back on some day and say that it was good to get this piece of infrastructure in place when we did. I hope that’s the case, but I suppose only time will actually tell.

So like my colleagues who have already spoken, I don’t see any other choice but to support this today. I suppose I could say on principle and to be consistent with every position I’ve taken on this bridge, to be consistent I could, I suppose, vote against this. But I don’t think that would be the right thing for me to do. I hope that people out there in the public who might have been expecting me to do that, to really stand up against this, because there is a lot of opposition to this project and the way it’s been handled out there in the public, and maybe there would be an expectation that I would vote against it on a matter of principle and on a matter of sending a statement to this government. But the reality is that the bridge is half built. We’re the guarantors of the loan. The loan has been called. We have no choice but to step up to the plate on this project. But going forward, let’s do everything in our power as a department and as a government to ensure that we bring whatever we can to this to make it a quality project and a viable project from the cost-benefit analysis and the projections that we base this on going back many years.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Next on the list I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the risk of repeating some of what I’ve heard, I think for many aspects of this project many Members are on the same wavelength. I can’t believe even our government members here are feeling particularly good about this situation.

I think our first failure, in my mind, was the inability or lack of success at getting the government to determine what it would cost us to buy our way out of this project in the early days of the Assembly, as many of us explicitly and repeatedly requested. Nevertheless, we didn’t do that. We went forward and sure enough we’re where many feared we would be.

As we’ve heard, this project has both a checkered technical history as well as political history. I know amongst the public certainly, and among some MLAs, the concerns persist that the technical aspects have not been fully resolved and are we further buying a pig in a poke here with approval in going forward with this.

I guess I want to know that with the new managers we have now hired, technical people and project managers, will we start with a thorough examination of the work done to date, both onsite physical inspections, technical, almost forensic inspections, as well as the inspections of documentation to assure that indeed what we have to go forward with is sound. That will be a very important aspect to the foundation for both this Assembly and members of the public. So I would expect that would be done and that would be reported back to both the public and to Members of the Assembly.

The questions remain on what the role of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation will be in the future. I think this needs to be resolved in a way that will not add to costs. If we can go forward without them playing a role and perhaps work with them in other ways that are productive and keep costs down, that’s something that I think we should entertain out of belated responsibility here again to our public and our taxpayers. I’d also like to see an assessment along with this appropriation of what our actual internal costs have been, and continue to be, and are projected to be. I’d like to see that reported again in the same way.

I’m wondering if I could ask a quick question before I go further here. Are the fiscal frameworks and projections that have been provided to us in committee, is that something we can speak to specifically?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I believe the agreement was we would allow everybody to make their general comments then we would ask for questions to the Minister, but we will have an opportunity to rebut your general comments after the Ministers have responded to the questions they are being asked now. You will have time to debate the response after we hear back from the Ministers on your questions now. So to be fair to the other Members, I think we’ll just keep going through the other Members, because we still have five Members on the list.

He’s got five minutes left.

Okay, Mr. Chairman. So I can’t get that clarification before, so I’ll speak in general terms here.

From what I’ve seen of the fiscal frameworks and projections, they were developed with densely rose-tinted glasses. They include projections that we’ve never achieved, to my knowledge. I’m wondering how many years we will be over our debt limit. I know that what was indicated in those frameworks is clearly not reality.

It speaks to the fundamental aspect that we need to know. I think we’re boxed in. We need to do this. But the most important thing to me is that we do it with a full appreciation of what the implications are so that we can best manage those implications. If we don’t do that, we’ll be again seeing things happen and reacting to specific events sort of randomly as opposed to in a planned way. Rose-tinted projections, we know that’s not the case. They look great, but the world just doesn’t work that way. If things went according to Hoyle it would be that way, but generally it’s Murphy that’s in control.

One of the aspects is this will be limiting our services and infrastructure in real terms. That’s why I think we need to get real projections to work with realistic projections and do what we can to minimize those impacts.

Finally, and I’ve mentioned this before in statements, how can we limit such irresponsible actions as those that have taken place and saddled this government with this situation in the future? To me that’s a question that is a serious question. We don’t want to repeat this in the future. So let’s put some thinking into that along with this.

I guess I’ll just finish by saying, along with everybody else, that this isn’t a great feeling, but we’re stuck with it. Constituents are contacting me, as well, saying don’t approve this. Unfortunately, that could be more costly than approving it.

Again, I hope the Minister heard my remarks about ensuring that what we have on the ground is totally sound and reliable and that will be confirmed and reported back to us before we go forward. I’ll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Next on my list is Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As stated by Mr. Bromley, at the risk of repeating things I feel that I must make my comments known in terms of this particular supp and how I feel about the bridge.

I stated last month in a statement that I was very disappointed that the supp we had to approve last month was simply confirmation of my doubts about the viability of the whole bridge project. I’ve had concerns since I was first elected to this Assembly. Those concerns, unfortunately, were validated. That was very disappointing, very depressing, I think I stated at the time.

Like Mr. Abernethy, I am extremely frustrated. This project was one which I, like the residents of the NWT, inherited without any input. We came in after the fact. As Members we came in after the fact, some of us. Residents have never really had any input on this particular project at all and what we’ve come to now is an absolute worst-case scenario. The government backstopped this particular project, guaranteed that the project would go forward, that we would guarantee the funding for this project, and that the worst-case scenario, in my mind, is we now have to do that. We have to pick up the loan, we have to pick up the debt, we have to finish the project.

I’m particularly frustrated, I’m depressed, I’m disappointed because I feel backed into a corner, because I agree with Mr. Abernethy who, I think it was, said -- or Mr. Beaulieu, I don’t know which -- we have no option. We could vote the bridge down, but other people have spoken to that. It really isn’t a realistic option.

I, like others, feel that this project has been poorly managed from the outset. Whether that’s the fault of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation or the fault of this particular government and our employees within the government I’m not very sure. I do know that we, according to the concession agreement, I think there was an opportunity for a project management board to be established. One was established. It was a two-member board. I would have thought that the project management board would have been the vehicle through which the project would have been overseen and that there would have been these two individuals keeping a fairly tight lid on what was going on and monitoring what was going on and making sure that the project was being managed properly. Apparently they really only looked at financial matters and didn’t really have much of an oversight in project management, if my understanding is correct. From what I understand as well, that board was disbanded last summer. So there hasn’t been any real work for that board since some time last summer. I have concerns relative to the management of the project and sort of how we got where we are.

I also have a number of other concerns. One of them particularly is some of the figures that we are being advised in terms of the repayment of the loan and of the debt. We’re working with figures which are at this point almost two years old. I have stated in committee, and I will state here for the record as well, that we need to have estimates, updated estimates of the expenses that are going to be incurred for this project or this bridge once it’s done and estimated numbers for the revenues that we expect to garner from the bridge once it’s done. There are about four or five different items and I realize that it’s difficult to be totally accurate, but I’m asking for an estimate. I’m not asking for a totally accurate number. For me to make a decision on any matter -- and I’m being asked to make a decision on whether or not this supplementary appropriation should be voted in or out -- I need to have that kind of information. I can’t really accurately consider whether or not we should take on this debt if I don’t know whether or not our expenses and revenues are going to match when it comes time in November 2011 when this thing is presumably finished.

I think it is important relative to finances, as well, that we keep the Deh Cho Bridge expenses and revenues in a separate fund, that we treat them separately. They will be within the Department of Transportation, but I think we ought to set up a fund and deal with them separately so that we have an idea of what the total costs for this project are when it comes time and I think it will, as the years go by, provide a better idea of whether or not our expenses and our revenues are accurate and whether or not we’re spending too much or whether we’re making lots of money.

I have a concern for our future years’ budgets. I think that with the inclusion of this additional debt that we are going to probably have to revise our spending downwards somewhat. Again, we don’t have really good information on how our budgets are going to have to be revised downwards, but nobody has yet been able to tell me what the impact is in terms of, say, the budget for 2012-13 or 2013-14. How is this additional debt going to impact the amount of expenditures that we’re going to be able to have in those years?

I have a concern for the Deh Cho Bridge shareholders. They’re being pretty much chucked out, the baby with the bath water kind of thing. What are they going to be left with?

The other concern is what is going to happen to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation? I know that things are being worked on, but when are we going to know what our relationship to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation is? It’s, again, an unanswered question that I would love to know the answer for.

I do, like others, have a concern for public safety. If the suggestions and the rumours are true that we have some poor construction on a part of the bridge that’s already done, then I really am concerned that we may end up with a similar situation to what’s happened in Quebec a couple of times where an overpass has fallen in and I really don’t want us to go there. So we need to be absolutely certain that the construction is as it should be. And I trust the information from the Ministers, but if we have any kind of a rumour, we’ve got to negate that rumour, we have to verify that, yes, the construction to date is absolutely solid.

I have a concern for the lack of a guarantee that we have for the accommodation that we’re going to get from the federal government, and I don’t want to call the federal Minister a liar, but we don’t have anything on paper and if it’s not a guarantee, then somebody could change their mind tomorrow and we don’t have anything that’s going to prove to us that, yes, this is actually going to happen and we are going to get the guarantee for our debt limit.

One of the things, too, I think is important is that there needs to be an acceptance of responsibility for this mess. Any of the people who were around when things were set in motion should accept some kind of responsibility for the situation that we’re currently in.

I’d like to mention a couple of things which I’ve mentioned before. They have been mentioned again, but they are important to me as well. One is that we have to do a complete analysis and audit of this whole project and an operational audit, not simply a financial. We have to know how things were set in place, what decisions were made, when and by whom, what actions were taken and the costs have to be tallied up. I have mentioned before that has to include our in-house or our in-kind costs that have been incurred by the GNWT staff, particularly the Department of Transportation. I feel very strongly that the Assembly has to set protocols in place that will ensure that in the waning months of an Assembly an action such as the one that was taken at the end of the 15th Assembly can’t happen again and those things need to be set in place prior to the end of this Assembly and I certainly hope we can do that.

Lastly, I’d like to extend thanks to the GNWT staff, particularly at Transportation and to Ministers who have done a huge amount of work over the last several months to try and get this project salvaged. Even as frustrated as I am, I appreciate the work that they’ve done and I know that they’ve worked very hard to try and keep this thing on the rails and I do have to extend my thanks for that.

I certainly will have questions when we come to discuss the bill itself, but that’s all that I have at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The next on my list is Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today hearing a lot of my colleagues in regard to this project, you know, it being the Bridge Act in the 14th Assembly coming into the time of being signed off in the 15th Assembly and now us having to deal with this issue, I want to really make it clear for the smaller communities, like my colleague Mr. Beaulieu was mentioning, that we have to let the communities know that this project is not going to affect us in the long term and all the projects that we do have on the books will stay as is on a go forward basis. I really think that anybody that’s going to be impacted the most out of this project will be the communities, so our hands are tied already. So you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

For myself, I will be supporting this motion on a go forward basis, but the government has to come out with a new rollout plan to tell us and tell the people of the Northwest Territories, and not only that, but with a game plan from their department in a big public blurp or a splash in the news in regard to this is our go forward, and hold them accountable to that. One hundred eighty-one million dollars is going to affect us. Speaking to the Premier, he said I really want to make this clear that it’s not going to be affecting the go forward for other projects in the communities. You know, I have projects I worry about for Ulukhaktok and Tuk and Sachs, Paulatuk, but I think on a go forward basis I was reassured that it’s not going to affect us, it would be totally separate and I really want to let the communities know and not scare them.

Like you said yourself, Mr. Chair, we have the simplest wording possible on the rollout plan for the people. It’s been almost two and a half years sitting here and this bridge has been and for some other of my colleagues it’s been a big issue and rightfully so. It’s a really important aspect of this government and our megaproject is this bridge. It will bring the cost of living down in Yellowknife and bring cheaper fuel, I guess, but at the end of the day all the taxpayers of the Northwest Territories are going to have to pay for this bridge.

So the only thing, like I said, the new rollout plan they have to come up with, letting the people know in the communities not to worry about the projects that are on the books. I look forward to listening to more of my colleagues on the go forward with this bill.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. There’s a motion on the floor. The motion is being distributed. To the motion.

Question.

Question is being called.

---Carried

We’ll extend hours until we conclude. We’ll just be carrying beyond our normal hours of adjournment. Next on my list, Mr. Jacobson, were you done?

Yes, I was, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Next on my list is Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was thinking about this last night and I was thinking about whoever thought that a bridge connecting the southern part of the Northwest Territories would be such a troublesome headache and heartache for some people, and for other people, what were they thinking, you know? Those types of thoughts ran through my mind.

Mr. Chair, when the bridge was considered in 1958 it was targeted at $6.2 million, as commissioned by the federal government consultant to do and at that time it was too expensive, unheard of, can’t do it. So they waited until a little later, until 1975, and, God forbid, 25 to 30 million dollars to build a bridge. Then after a while, later on it was considered again and it was unheard of naming the price at $50 million. Mr. Chair, now the price tag is at $182 million and a lot of people are just rolling their eyes and saying what happened to the price, it escalated so high.

You know, Mr. Chair, I’ve looked at it and I thought, well, you know, to build a bridge, it’s simple. You know, put together a team of planners, put together some financial gurus, some engineers, a construction company, get the support of the communities, territorial support, and simply build a bridge. Follow the plans and cut the ribbon and move on and build other bridges. I thought, you know, because we have very capable, competent people within the Northwest Territories and how things are getting done here. Sounds simple, right, Mr. Chair?

However, as I get more and more into the details and find out about the negotiations and how things move and what things need to be considered, it’s like a chef being in the kitchen with a recipe: everybody’s doing their sort of thing, how much you need of this, how much you need of that and you can’t do this before this gets done and everything’s got to move in a synchronized way sort of thing, and sometimes it just doesn’t happen -- the power goes out and all hell breaks loose. Then the light goes back and we say, okay, where are we at now? Well, we’ve got to start all over again on this one here, because this recipe is just not right because it has to be at this temperature and all this stuff.

Really, it’s about getting people to work together, the way I see it. Somebody had to have the vision here, and I’m not too sure if we had a strong enough vision to really construct the bridge and put the bridge in in the way that we thought it was planned to be.

I think my colleague Ms. Bisaro talked about the management team, the quality of the management team, doing the checks. That’s what I’m looking forward to, this new appropriation bill and how is this government going to assure the people of the Northwest Territories, my constituents in the Sahtu, that quality control assurance is going to happen from now on, and is that going to be the norm and the ethical integrity standards of all our infrastructure projects.

Mr. Krutko from the Mackenzie Delta said it earlier, there are other projects that need to be considered, looked at, seriously put on the books in terms of opening up the Northwest Territories, not just one part of the Northwest Territories but other parts of the Northwest Territories. If we’re really serious about this Deh Cho Bridge, we should be really seriously considering other bridges like the Peel, the Great Bear, even I’ll mention the Liard. We have to consider that. We are investing $165, over $182 million into a major infrastructure. We are going to own this asset. Well, we should also look at other regions that need the type of infrastructure that will open up their economic resources to contribute to the Northwest Territories, not just on a part-time basis.

With this Deh Cho Bridge I hope that we come out with a real good book on how to build bridges in the Northwest Territories. We have some people who are advising us. Well, we have to really pull them to task here and hold them accountable as to the advice that we’re getting, because this project here, when you look at the big picture, Mr. Chair, is small. We want to build a Mackenzie Valley Highway at $1.8 billion; $165 million, $182 million is nothing. By golly, let’s get it right here, and let’s learn all the lessons we had with the Deh Cho Bridge. Take it as a real hard learned lesson.

Is this going to increase our cost of living or decrease our cost of living in Fort Providence, in Behchoko, in Whati, Gameti, and of course into the community of Yellowknife and Dettah and Ndilo? What about in the Sahtu and the Beaufort-Delta, the Mackenzie Delta, Nahendeh? Are those communities going to have to see an increase or a decrease in their cost of living? Because we are certainly a part of that bridge now, we’re right in bed with them. Are we going to see that? So those are the kind of questions I’m going to ask later on.

Again, my colleague talked about the federal government’s involvement and I spoke earlier to Premier, and I think Mr. Premier has given me some assurance and satisfaction, but the federal government’s involvement to go ahead in terms of how we can get some evidence and say yes, the federal government is going to say what they’re going to do. That will go a long way with me in terms of putting some support behind this appropriation bill here.

The cost of opening up the Northwest Territories in the southern part certainly has opened up my eyes in terms of what it takes. It’s not a popular thing, building this bridge here. Certainly from the community of Fort Providence, they had a vision. I’m not too sure, as my colleagues mentioned, if the management had really owned up to the vision, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this position. This was a P3 project, a totally different scenario. Now we’re in a different ballgame here, so I hope we have some leadership on this here to move on with the project here.

I talked about the Mackenzie Valley Highway and the bridges. I certainly want to know for sure in terms of how this is going to affect us in the years to come.

Mr. Chair, the comments I do have... I want to save it for later on when we get more into the detail. There are some really good comments around the table that I heard in terms of this superstructure that’s going into the Mackenzie River. You know, I take the position that I do have a choice that I’m making today. My choice is that if I do not support it, you would tell me specifically what the consequences are going to be to pull those piers out. You will tell me what it’s going to cost the Sahtu, because I also have a choice to say if we do go ahead with it. What type of satisfactory answers can you give me to say yes on projects, on debt, long-term repayment and various options to repay this on a shorter term, and other things like that would satisfy me.

People in the Sahtu want to know that if the Deh Cho Bridge is going to be, we want to know if the Bear River Bridge can get built and have this kind of support on the bridge on the Bear River. My friend talked about the Peel River. They want to know, if we do it for one, we are going to do it for all. Or even Liard, they talked about a bridge there. We have to talk about this. We have to open the North for everybody, not just for southern parts. I will end it there, Mr. Chairman. Let’s get on this and move.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on my list is Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was certainly in the Cabinet on the day that started the whole process of the Deh Cho Bridge. I have no problem to say that I continue to support the bridge. It was a megaproject. It was good for the North and even after we were elected, up to a year ago or 18 months ago it was a timely project. The economy was going downhill and providing work and opportunities to the North certainly was a good thing. However, I still continue to support the bridge. I ran out of friends in supporting the bridge, Mr. Chairman, only because of the debacle that has happened in the last year. My constituents, of course, are increasingly concerned. They have not said stop the project to me at any point, but they do want to say that as taxpayers they don’t want to be paying for it. If anything, the Minister and the Premier can explain to the public about some of the cost recoveries, efforts, that are built into the process as well as we approved $15 million not even two or three week ago. Of course, when that hits the media, the taxpayers are concerned that they are the ones that are going to be paying for it. Some more explanation for that is certainly necessary.

One of the reasons I support the bridge project is because myself and my constituents have always believed that some regions get their special projects and eventually somewhere down the line my region will get a special project. They are huge and big. They require a tremendous amount of resources, money, and we cannot do two or three at a time. Eventually I see a special project for my region. One of them, of course, is one of the entry points to us eventually getting involved in the Mackenzie Highway expansion. We foresee a bridge around Fort Simpson as well.

At the same time, within the last two and a half years the frustration of the Members come out here is only because we as MLAs, our power as MLAs is the most potent, I guess, when we assemble. That is the time we can question the government. We can unite as MLAs. We can lobby, persuade and pursue government for accountability issues. This is no different. My concern is how is government going to inform Members from this side of the House that Regular Members and Priorities and Planning committee throughout up until May and even throughout the summer months of progress of the Deh Cho Bridge, because it is no wonder my colleagues are distrustful. We spend a lot of time away from the House during the summer months only because we are doing our summer constituency work and I think it is up to almost two and a half months that we are away during the summer.

Once again, when we break from here, we are not going to resume until sometime in May. During those quiet periods of when our Legislature is not sitting, that we as Members are doing the hearsay things, get bits and pieces of information, but we did pass a motion in this House in the winter session as well as there was a commitment by the Minister to update the MLAs on a regular basis. I would like to challenge him. How is he going to best do that? I don’t know if it is by phone conferences or else pick an opportune time between now and the main session to get us all together and to update us on the progress of the construction. That is what my constituents want from me. They want me to have the opportunity to be more watchful over the project.

I was never one for micromanaging government projects there, Mr. Chairman, but in this case there are lots of sensitivities around the Deh Cho Bridge project. I myself as an MLA want assurances and I want the confidence to report to my constituency that, yes, with government taking over the bridge, there is a good stable management team. One of the ways that we build trust, Mr. Chairman, is we have to have frequent meetings to ensure that things are on track, to ensure that a lot of the questions that myself and my colleagues have been asking are answered. I do not want to see that if we conclude here by Friday and we are not resuming again until May, like I said, but I think that there has to be a mechanism of bringing us back together as a full Assembly through some form or another to continue to update us on the progress of the bridge.

As well, during my questions in the House in the winter session to the Minister of Transportation around the Deh Cho Bridge, the confidence of the public needs to be reassured too. I think the Minister spoke of establishing a website, trying to put as much construction information on the website. We as MLAs get a lot of information, but the public deserves that very same information and I am reiterating what my colleague said about what we said all along: the public wants to know. They have a right to know as much information that they can get that is not confidential in nature. As we are progressing here, we have done lots of work. We released lots of information but it would be nice to consolidate it into a website. I am not too sure how they would do it, but I think that commitment should be followed up as well.

Another thing that we are taking over the bridge project. It is too bad about the way things played out there, Mr. Chairman. Having the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and the community of Fort Providence building the bridge was a good intention. Unfortunately, there are many reasons for it. One of the biggest ones, of course, as they call it a P3 project. Hopefully we can learn from this because other communities will want P3 projects. They will want opportunities to build big infrastructures because there are some on the books. At the same time we have to learn from it and establish at least some type of guidelines that especially in this case we should have had assurances like we had to establish and managing a manager and engineers. There should be some criteria to follow and not just set up a corporation for setting up a corporation. I think by not being too diligent in that sense, we were certainly part of that failure. So hopefully we will learn from that and for the future, because we do need communities to work with our government and work towards the benefit of the communities, be it financial or social or economic, whatever their benefits may be. Just because we got a bad experience here doesn’t mean that we cannot move forward with other projects there.

With that, if anything in my opening statements is pertinent here is that we’re going to need a mechanism for reviewing progress reports between now and May and then throughout the summer months. I believe that’s up to the government to come up with a solution like that.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to say I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. I think all things being what they are, this has definitely been a pretty tough learning curve on how we handle P3s in the Northwest Territories. We, if anything, have had a very poor record on P3s. If anything, we should have probably done more due diligence on who our partners were and if they have the capacity to do the job. Also having a company heading your construction going bankrupt halfway through the project didn’t help either. I think we have to be realistic here that we hopefully will avoid these implications happening in the future. I think sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes and try to move forward knowing you have learned the hard way.

I think by learning the hard way I do have concerns coming from constituents where we are asking for capital projects, whether it’s the Aklavik road project to its gravel source and hoping we would be treated just like Tuktoyaktuk and their gravel source. For some reason we just didn’t happen to be on top of the list. We ended up at the bottom of the list. Now we’re being told to put an application in to the federal government. Well, dollars were spent from this government for that project. The same thing with regard to preliminary work on the Peel River Bridge. That stuff was done between myself and other parties. I think this government has to take those issues seriously.

We realize we spent a lot of money on capital infrastructure in the last number of years. If you look geographically at where those capital expenditures are and wonder why the small communities are having infrastructure challenges, we’re being told sorry, we can’t help you there. Sorry, we don’t have money for this. Sorry, we don’t have money for that. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a trail to a gravel source or a simple trail in the communities, we’re limited for that. Yet we still have health issues in the communities whether it’s about dust control, et cetera. For some reason this government does not seem to have the willingness to assist in those areas. When it comes to going into crisis mode we manage to find $15 million simply by coming forward with a supp to say sorry, it’s a goodwill gesture and it will get us over the hurdle and we’ll get money back to move on the project. Then we find out coming here today that was not the case.

I think that as a government we are responsible for ensuring the public purse. I still don’t feel comfortable with the comments in the Premier’s statement about Mr. Flaherty going to Cabinet to get some sort of Cabinet approval for us to be able to do this. When is this going to Cabinet? When are we going to get something in writing? Will they have to make amendments to speak to our borrowing limit through legislative changes? I don’t feel comfortable simply saying that Mr. Flaherty is a nice guy. If Mr. Flaherty was such a nice guy he would have helped us with the investment in the pipeline. He would have helped us with the investment in the Mackenzie Highway. Yet the Conservative government has not done anything by way of major investment in the Northwest Territories to allow those capital projects to be funded by federal investment dollars. Yet the Aboriginal Pipeline Group and the Mackenzie Valley organizations are trying to work with them to get this stuff going. I think it’s something we have to be aware of, knowing that we don’t have control of the federal decision. It’s a Cabinet decision that has to be made in the federal government. Until that decision is made I cannot fully support this initiative going forward until I know for a fact that there was a federal Cabinet meeting where they made the decision to increase our borrowing limit to $665 million. I know you’re saying that, but for me saying it is one thing and going to the federal Cabinet table and making that federal decision is something that I’d like to see in writing from the federal Minister that the Cabinet decision was made.

I think it’s important that we as legislators realize that whatever way we make the decision we would have had to pay for this capital investment over 35 years. Now it seems like we’re going to have to put it on our books sooner than we thought. Because of that now we’re still going to have to make those payments over 35 years but under a different financial formula than we expected.

I think that we as a government have to realize that we have to take advantage of this opportunity. I know that through the capacity that this government has and with the Department of Transportation taking over this responsibility and having key people in key positions to oversee and manage the project whether it’s the building and construction of bridges or developing the engineering capacity that we’re hoping to keep in house after we conclude this project and also be able to move on to other projects that I’ve touched on such as the Peel River Bridge, the Bear River Bridge, the bridge across the Liard and replace the ferries going forward. I think we also have to realize that there are other big projects on the horizon such as the pipeline or the Mackenzie Highway or connecting our communities to the Government of the Northwest Territories public infrastructure. As we can see from global warming and whatnot, we are going to have to make that decision to connect communities to public highways over land. We cannot depend on the winter resupply system as we’ve learned over the years. It’s going to get worse. It’s not going to get better.

I know that there is nothing we can do now. We’re in a bad situation. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. I think because of that we have no other choice but to agree to this supp going forward with some guarantees from the federal government in writing that the federal Cabinet has made the decision to increase our borrowing limit to allow us to work this through our debt without an implication on future governments going forward.

Someone who has been here since the 13th Assembly, we walked into a $110 million deficit that we had to crawl out of. We had to sell government assets, amalgamate departments, lay people off. That wasn’t easy. If we end up finding out that Cabinet for one reason or another has not agreed fully on this and they say no to Mr. Flaherty, then what? That’s the question I have and I’d like an answer to that one.

For me I certainly don’t feel comfortable going forward. What happens to that debt after five years? If they give us a five-year window, where does this fit in our books after five years? How does this move forward with future debt we will be assuming for other public infrastructure such as the replacement of Snare Hydro or replacement of major capital projects such as the Power Corporation increasing its debt?

The other issue I have is in regard to the Housing Corporation debt and what happens when we have to replace the $35 million supp funding for the housing rent supp? There are numbers out there that we still have to be aware of. I realize going forward, from what we’ve seen, that we haven’t seen much growth. If anything, our population numbers are dropping. Our corporate taxes are not what we were hoping they would be. I think for myself we have to get that guaranteed assurance from the federal government. Hopefully we’ll get that sometime this week or at least some assurance that Cabinet has dealt with it and made a decision.

I will leave it at that and look forward to the responses from the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. That’s all the Members on my list. I will now go to Premier Roland for a response to the general comments. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll deal with some of the comments that were made and requests for information and then I’ll hand it over to Minister Michael McLeod to deal with some of the technical aspects of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and the structures and Associated Engineering, all that side of it.

A number of things that we need to put out in, as Members have said, clear English, plain English for the record for the public of the Northwest Territories, the first one is that, I think Mr. Bromley stated, he’d rather not be here. I’ve heard other Members say that and I share their frustration. We would not want to be here as well. Our preference is that everything sailed along as was initially designed and we would be saying this is the best thing we ever entered into with our aboriginal partnership across the Northwest Territories or the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, in this case, and had a very successful project. Unfortunately, like a self-fulfilling prophecy from some of the Members in the Assembly over the years, this has come to the worst-case scenario. I must say that there are times when it’s been very frustrating when we are in very sensitive areas of discussion with the lenders, and in this case we’ve got a commitment from the federal Minister of Finance, Minister Flaherty, dealing with us on this debt relief for the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Again, we’re making comments that hopefully do not affect us as we go forward and shut those doors on us.

I put a lot of weight in my dealings with Minister Flaherty. He has told me in the past when I was Finance Minister, and this had started even into this first budget of the 16th Assembly, he was clear to me on what we were going to get or not get. So when he tells me that he will work with us to deal with this debt, I put a lot of weight to his words on that side of it. We’re trying to get the language narrowed down as best as possible and provide that comfort to the Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Secondly, the fact that if we do not deal with this matter as we have proposed to the Members of the Legislative Assembly, then guaranteed what Members are saying now about impacts on projects, impacts on our operations and maintenance, they will be impacted. We will have to live within our fiscal responsibility policy which tells us we have to live within our means. Although this year we would not impact it, we would be impacted on that debt limit before the end of the 16th Legislative Assembly without relief from the federal government. I’m putting a lot of weight in that relief from Minister Flaherty.

The other areas that we do need to again be clear on is that without the necessary steps being taken by this Assembly we would have to pay penalties over and above what is being proposed now. As much as Members are reluctant to accept that, that is the fact. The concession agreement is there. The concession agreement has been in the hands of Members since the early life of this government. That’s unfortunate it’s there. The reason it was a 35-year agreement was the simple fact that as the Government of the Northwest Territories we knew we couldn’t afford to do a big project in big chunks. So it was spread out much like we would do a mortgage on a home, but a 35-year agreement. This agreement is typical of corporate agreements of this nature when it comes to borrowing of money.

There has been much said about this. In fact, I was doing a lot of historical review of Hansard right back to 2003 when the legislation for the Deh Cho Bridge Act was passed by the Legislative Assembly. There were some very nice things said about that legislation, about what it could mean for us and wishing the partners much success as we move forward. I think many of us shared that in the life of the 14th Legislative Assembly. Unfortunately, we are in this situation now where we’re having to assume it and make it a wholly owned government project, and as I said in the Minister’s statement earlier, accept and assume the debt and the project on the books as a government capital project.

So there was much support for the act itself. In the act there was the design of a yet-to-be-agreed-to concession agreement. So in the 14th Assembly, that was put forward; 15th Assembly, the negotiations began and were worked on and signed off; 16th Assembly, we started dealing with the financial matters of that concession agreement and getting those details in order and working with quite a number of partners.

The area that was discussed about the fiscal projections being rose-tinted glasses, I would say that’s been far from what I’ve come to look at in my years as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. There are many times that I’ve been told when I used to be in Finance and Finance overall was told too conservative, you’re too conservative, you need to open the doors more. So we tend to operate on that basis and it served us well.

When we sat down as the Legislature at the start of this Assembly, we presented a belt-tightening exercise to live within our means to avoid the debt wall. We have avoided the debt wall, even though we did not succeed to the fullest extent we wanted to, because Members felt it was too harsh. So we did not fully implement the belt-tightening exercise back then, but we still achieved a portion of it that allowed us to live within our means. Same scenario here: we’re proposing we take this project over and we have a fix in place that would allow us to move forward without impacting, and I’ll say this again, without impacting on the fiscal strategy that was presented in Finance Minister Miltenberger’s budget address made in this House at the end of January. That strategy stays in place before we got the news from the lenders that they wanted us to assume the debt. So we’re still working with that strategy in place.

I must say, I, as well, am frustrated with the fact that we have come to this place in the history of the Government of the Northwest Territories, but at the same time we’ve heard Members about supporting projects across the North, other bridges, other highways, other infrastructure that is needed across the Territory, much the same as we talk about the Deh Cho Bridge. At one point there was the… Someone actually showed me, a past resident of Yellowknife showed me the dollar bills that were made for the bridge project back then and people bought these as a symbolic way of saying they wanted the bridge project. Every government until the 14th Assembly saw it as unable to be done because of our financial processes and our debt limits, until this matter came up and this approach was taken and risk was weighed and a decision was made to move forward.

So we’re in this position. We have a supplementary appropriation documented to assume the debt and the project and the dollars. We’re working with the federal government to give us relief on the debt situation overall, the debt limit they’ve put in place, short-term relief, as Minister Flaherty has told me, and we will need to go on that basis.

Yes, there needs to be a better accounting. We fully realize that. In fact, when the first signs of the construction problem started to appear, that project management board, as Member Bisaro spoke of, was in place. Following that, with all of the difficulties that came in place, there was a new management structure put in place and the lender signed off on that. So for the year following, things moved along much better. In fact, the construction company now, Ruskin, that is doing this, showed that that next year... They were able to move that project along in a manner much smoother and move it along at a good rate, and we’re holding now, as we go forward, that that will be the practice going forward. But for the rest of the details on the technical side and all of that, I will go to Minister McLeod on that.

Thank you, Premier Roland. We’ll now go to Minister Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d also like to thank the Members for their comments. I certainly can appreciate a certain level of frustration on this project. I don’t believe I have to remind anybody why the bridge project was embarked on. This has been on the minds of the residents of this area for years, from the time the Yellowknife road was constructed to connect to the rest of Canada, there has always been a bottleneck, there has always been a very fragile piece of infrastructure that had to be constructed every year, and we also had to rely on ferry service that had a lot of interruptions and we still see that to this day. Through the concept of a public-private partnership we at last had the means to move forward on construction of a very important piece of public infrastructure that would allow us to construct this transportation infrastructure. It would also allow us to not deplete our capital resources, which we felt was important.

I still believe that it’s an important part of what we do; it’s an important piece of infrastructure. At the time, a year and a half ago when the opportunity was made available for me to assume the Department of Transportation I talked to the Premier because I felt that I could lend something to this department and to this project. I continue to believe in the project, and I certainly continue to believe in our staff at DOT.

For the time that I’ve been involved with the government as a Regular Member and as a Cabinet Minister, we’ve all talked about we need to think outside of the box, we have to be creative. Certainly that’s the direction I’ve taken as a result from what I hear in this government and what I hear from Regular Members. We’ve done a lot of things on that front. The Tuk-Inuvik road is a good example. It’s a partnership with those two communities, and it’s allowed us to provide a lot of work and move forward on that front where it’s attracted the attention of the federal government. We also have done the same thing with the City of Yellowknife; we created a partnership, something that historically hadn’t been done in terms of working together with communities. And we continue to do that. We’re doing it now with the project description report on the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We’re also signing agreements with the Gwich’in and the Sahtu and now the Deh Cho also want to have meetings.

So it’s an interesting way to do business. It’s something that we need to look at and the reality is if we don’t put on our creative hats, a lot of things wouldn’t happen. Certainly I think if the direction is that we change the way we do business and wait for the feds to do it, that’s something we’ll take as direction and move forward on that front. But recognizing that this project right from the get-go was a megaproject, any kind of slippage, any type of delays were going to be very expensive. I think we all recognize now there were challenges with the design that didn’t pass all the inspections that were required, and there were also challenges with the contractor and things had to be changed, decisions had to be made, and they were very difficult ones.

Earlier on we had anticipated, I think, MLA Hawkins indicated that we should have had federal support. Well, we did seek federal support in terms of dollars and investment. They were not in a position to make that contribution as they didn’t have their P3 office set up and they just set the program up recently.

The bridge design was reviewed by advisors that we hired independently, that gave us the confidence to go ahead. There is, of course, as we know now, a lot of difficulty getting the conceptual design to pass a lot of the tests, but there is also rationale that we were challenged again because one of the designers left the project and we had to bring in new people onto the design team. The question was raised will we be going after the original designer for recovery? I imagine that’s something we’re going to visit. It’s under consideration. When a project goes forward without the original designer not being available, that certainly causes challenges and so we’re exploring that and we’re looking at other ways to see what we can recover. Having said that, we expect any litigation that is embarked on won’t be pretty and that’s certainly something that has to be considered as the project is stabilized and we move forward.

The regulations for the toll on the toll rate is again another area that we’re working on. It’s not done yet, but this is something we need to have in place before the summer of 2011.

The issues raised by MLA Ramsay are certainly not new ones. He’s raised them before. He’s been very vocal about the project. He’s stated on some occasions that he supports the project but has concerns. I’m still trying to find what areas he supports, and, of course, the public tender issue is something that he’s raised and we’ve responded by indicating that we did have initial discussions with ATCON Construction and weren’t able to conclude our negotiations or our discussions with them. Because of time and because of costs we felt the best way to go and we had people that concurred with us that this is what we needed to do. Going to a public tender would have meant another year delay. That would have cost at least the price of the interest and what it would mean to payments on interest and principal and that would have been, we calculate, at least $8 million plus and that’s not something we wanted to come forward for another contribution.

We agree that an audit needs to be done on the bridge. We have committed that we will be doing a review internally and also at the conclusion of the project have an independent company. I also believe the Premier had made those commitments prior to now and a lot of things have to be looked at. We have to look at the internal costs of what it costs us as a department, as a government and things that were not charged back to the project itself. We would expect that’s over $1 million for some of the staff that we have that put their time towards it, some of the vehicle costs, the travel costs, the hotel rooms, things of that nature have to be calculated and packaged up so we can provide it. We have to take a detailed look at the construction costs to date. We have been reviewing it as we went along. We have to do a wrap-up and see what has transpired there.

I’m not sure when the Member states that I don’t believe the government or the department has an accurate measurement of how far the project has moved along and why he would challenge that. I’m not sure what his expertise is or who he is using to provide that information, but we feel it’s 50 percent completed, $90 million of the $180 million budget has been spent. I guess we need clarity as to what the Member means when he says what is also hanging out in the background. I thought we were pretty clear when we indicated that the contract for Ruskin was at $68 million. We signed for $72 because it included a $4 million carry-over. If that wasn’t clear to the Member I certainly apologize for that, but that was the intent and I believe that was brought forward to the committee.

There was also a question raised as to what day did the Bridge Corporation actually sign a contract with Ruskin Construction and that day was the 4th of March, that’s the day that the contract was actually signed. What caused the lenders to call or request the government to assume the loan? I think it’s pretty clear that they were feeling that there was a design default on the milestone that they set. We don’t agree, but there is no mechanism for us to appeal it or dispute it. So it’s brought us to this point. Also to look at cancelling the contract with Ruskin right now we feel would have huge financial implications and I’m still not happy when a Member raises a concern and points to a company that could do it cheaper, a company that feels they were left out and now is operating in hindsight and giving us a really lowball price. So it’s concerning, but I mean I have to appreciate the Member’s point of view.

Like other Members, I was happy to hear the comments from Mr. Abernethy. He’s indicated that is one of the first times that we’re going to be voting on this. I think the House has had a couple of occasions to vote on it, maybe not these Members but the 14th Assembly the Deh Cho Bridge Act was voted on and more recently we had the $15 million supp that came forward. He’s also indicated that there’s a lot of lessons that need to be learned and we need to take a look at the concept of P3, what worked, what didn’t work and what do we do to prevent things of this nature from happening. I think there are a lot of things that we can look at for improvement. There’s also, of course, concern that he’s raised with myself because he felt I was confident on this project. Mr. Chair, I have to point to the fact that it’s difficult to deal with the number of challenges that have come forward, but at the same time if I was going to lose my confidence in the project, then I guess I wouldn’t or shouldn’t be in this position. It’s still a project that can move forward, it can be stabilized. We’ve made a lot of changes.

Aside from the $15 million cost overrun, it has not cost any more than what we had anticipated. The $15 million is going to be recovered. We have to make sure people understand that and I certainly agree. Assuming the debt is something that has always been part of this project as we guaranteed it as a government. Of course, this is the worst-case scenario and we have to make sure and make it clear to the public as to what impact this would have to our borrowing limit and we also have to qualify and what and why we hired the team we have in terms of providing that information on their qualifications and what has given us the confidence as we move forward.

There is a timeline that’s put in place of 2011. That was not a number that was picked out of the air. That’s something that was discussed and calculated and the construction company felt was something they could achieve. So there is a schedule.

I also want to make a couple comments on Mr. Beaulieu’s statements regarding not knowing about the $165 million. I thought it was fairly clear, but it’s unfortunate that he misunderstood and I would point out to him that he should feel free to come and request additional information from us or a briefing if that is warranted. There is a return on the investment. I’m not sure why he would feel that there is no return. Up to now it’s only been for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and for us it would be that piece of infrastructure that we would assume in 35 years. There is a long-term commitment for 35 years on this project and there always has been.

I also wanted to point out that I certainly agree with some of the comments made by Mrs. Groenewegen about the $185 million capital investment. This is probably one of the few projects we have that has a self-liquidating component to it as three-quarters of this is either money that we’re already spending or money that we’ll be generating. It has some very positive parts to it. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had so many challenges.

I also want to make it clear that I’m concerned that a number of Members have raised potential structural problems with this project. I have no indication of that. We’ve gone back and talked to the people involved with the project. We’ve talked to the contractor. I’m not sure where that’s coming from. We know there are some people outside of this forum who may be raising this. It would be in order I think for us to be informed of that. If there is a concern for public safety or public security, then we should know that. Right now we have no evidence of that and we’ve talked to a lot of people in light of being informed that there were concerns. So if anybody has any information, I certainly want to hear that.

There also is and still are many positive aspects of this project. Mrs. Groenewegen pointed to inflation and global warming. I would add to that convenience and environmental concerns and safety. All these things are still positive parts of this project.

Mr. Bromley raised a lot of issues also and made some interesting comments about this project having a checkered political and technical past. He’s also raised the concern about some of the issues on the technical side not being fully resolved. I would appreciate if we could get more clarity on what he’s pointing to. We feel we have a new design. We have the checks and balances. We have quality control in place that would prevent any concerns from coming forward.

He’s also made some comments or given his opinion about our fiscal framework and projections that are used. I guess our projection is just what it is: a projection based on our best information and best analysis with our best people.

The comments made by Wendy Bisaro regarding the project being poorly managed is something that I guess we’ll find out as we move forward. Fingers continue to be pointed either to the Bridge Corporation, ourselves, the contractor, the designer. I guess there are a lot of people involved and I’m sure everybody shares a little bit of what has happened.

There was a project management board set up initially and then last year we decided that it had really no value. They didn’t have a lot of authority or power to control. We were in a position where we had to step in and enhance our involvement. It was felt this was the best move.

We are looking at doing more assessments on truck traffic and more recently, as has been brought forward as an issue.

We are also tracking our revenues and expenditures separately. That’s a requirement of the Deh Cho Bridge Act.

As to the involvement of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in the community of Fort Providence, that’s something that’s ongoing. We’d like to resolve that as soon as possible. We’ve had a number of meetings already. We plan to meet with them again, at least some of the senior people, this week sometime and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll have that resolved.

There has been mention by a number of people that there needs to be a complete analysis of the project. We need to set protocols in place. We certainly agree. We don’t dispute that.

Again, Mr. Yakeleya raised how this project has created headache and heartache. I certainly can support that. The concept sounds very simple: you design a project, you provide the funding, you hire the contractors, you go forward. I think all those ingredients were part of this project. There have been challenges that have factored in. But I also agree with the Member when he states that there are other projects that have to be considered. We need to be able to at some point decide or become creative enough that we can deal with the Great Bear bridge crossing, the Peel River that the MLA for Mackenzie Delta keeps raising, and Liard, and all those crossings need to be addressed at some point. I’m not sure if that’s something we want to wait for the federal government to do or if we’re going to try to move forward on those fronts. Right now we need to focus on stabilizing this project.

Mr. Menicoche raised the issue of better communication. We agree. We have already started moving on that whole area that needs to be addressed. We have developed a website that we are in the testing stages of. We are currently using it internally and at some point we would like to have that opened up for the public so they can see what’s happening and get the reports. There is some information on the GNWT website, but we’d like to see a bridge website also. We also want to start looking at providing information in print and continue with providing reports to the MLAs so they are in tune as this project unfolds.

All these things need to be done. We need to deal with the current issues in front of us first, of course. And we have to also look at how to respond to other communities that are asking us to do similar projects.

I guess MLA Abernethy summed it up the best. There is virtually not a lot of changes to the project except for the fact that there is a cost factor because of the delay of $15 million. Now we have to assume the debt. We’ve always guaranteed the debt, but now it comes on our books and of course there are concerns for the implications to the debt wall.

There were many things said today and many things that we agree with. Some things we need to get more clarity on. There is a learning curve, as Mr. Krutko said, and it has been a huge one. We need to of course always have the due diligence as we deal with companies and design. So I appreciate all the comments that were made and look forward to further questions on more specific detail.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. All the Members have had the opportunity to make general comments. The Premier and Minister have responded. Is committee agreed that we have concluded general comments?

Agreed.

Does the committee wish to proceed with detail on Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, 2010-2011?

Agreed.

It starts on page 5, but before we get started we’ll take a short break. Thank you, Members.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. We’re reviewing Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, 2010-2011 (Infrastructure Expenditures), and we’re on detail, page 5. First on my list is Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn’t going to get into a history lesson here but perhaps just to go back a little bit, if we look back, and it’s hard… I know the Minister of Transportation said the blame has to be shared around a number of people on this, and if I can just call it like I see it, there are two guys sitting at the table here, both were Members of the previous Cabinet, and if you want to get a little bit of a history lesson, you know, the Finance Minister, former Finance Minister, the Chair of the FMB, and the Minister who would have approved the concession agreement in the dying days of the last government is sitting right here. That’s a bit of a history lesson for you.

This is a serious situation that we’ve gotten ourselves into, and the Premier and the Minister of Transportation, they can spin things however they want to spin them, especially when it comes to the potential of this project to negatively impact the Territory’s finances on a go forward basis. The reason why it’s possible, I believe, for them to say that it’s not going to impact the fiscal strategy is because this supplementary appropriation hasn’t been passed. Absolutely, this expenditure, if it is on our books -- and Mr. Krutko is right, we haven’t gotten anything in writing from anybody -- if this expenditure ends up on the books of the Government of the Northwest Territories it is going to impact our ability to borrow money, it’s going to impact our ability to spend money. And let’s be frank and honest with the residents in the Northwest Territories, those people living in every community across the Territory that are going to be looking for infrastructure spending in their communities, if this thing continues to tilt sideways like it has, our ability as a government to deliver for our residents is going to be negatively impacted.

I’m not ready, maybe some of my colleagues might be ready to drink that Kool-Aid that’s out there, but I’m not willing to drink that Kool-Aid. I would equate it, Mr. Chairman, to something like a credit card and we’ve got ourselves up against our credit limit. We might be able to get a bit of a reprieve from the federal government, Mr. Chairman, but that $165 million is going to have to be repaid at some point in time. There’s no mistaking that. There’s no getting around that. Certainly, the project is going to generate some revenue, so I guess that is one good aspect to it, but we are going to be on the hook for this, and there are some reasons here that, again, I just can’t see myself…

The right thing to do is to see this project through to conclusion, and I want to see that happen. However, there are some things here, Mr. Chairman, that, in my view, just need to be thoroughly addressed, and they haven’t been addressed.

The first question I’d have, and I guess I would direct it to the Minister of Transportation, is the concerns are out there over the concrete work on the south piers. If we want to get into specifics, I can get into specifics on which pier, how many loads were sent back. I can get into the core samples that were taken and, again, I’ve got a number of pictures, Mr. Chairman, that I do intend on tabling in this House either tomorrow, on Wednesday, that clearly show, and I’m not an engineer, but they clearly show cracks, thermal cracks on a number of the south piers, they show scour rock that is nowhere near the diameter that it was supposed to be for and it’s not even granite, it’s limestone. Most of that scour rock that was put in to protect the piers on the south side of that river has probably flowed away with the current by now. So what protection is there under the water for those piers today? I think that’s a question that needs to be thoroughly analyzed and looked at before, like I said earlier, Mr. Chairman, we approve additional money for this project and we build on top of the already in-the-ground infrastructure there. We need to make sure that that infrastructure is sound and it’s going to meet testing that should be… I think we should get a third party in there to have a look at the concrete work on the south piers.

Also, Mr. Chairman, there are issues with some other things on that, but I guess I have to ask questions here so I will ask that question to the, I guess, the first one would be to the concrete work on the south piers. What can the Minister provide to Members to give us every assurance that that concrete is sound and would pass quality assurance tests if a third party went in there and had a look at it? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. First I’ll go to Premier Roland and then I’ll go to Minister McLeod. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess, to deal with some of the spin that Mr. Ramsay continues to put out there and innuendo about things lacking and potential trouble here and trouble there, we’ve dealt with this from the day I first took the chair as Premier of the 16th Legislative Assembly, we’ve provided the information. Unfortunately we find ourselves here where we’re actually putting a document forward that would assume the debt and management of the project and make it a Government of the Northwest Territories, a fully owned and operated project of the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Member says let’s be frank and honest. Well, then I ask the Member himself to be frank and honest. Put out the facts. If he’s calling into question the designation of individuals who have signed off on the tests, then he needs to put that on the record. He should have, in fact, when he first came across this information, been down the hall to either myself or the Minister to say we’ve got some real serious issues where we have one engineer calling into question another engineer’s work so that we could actually look into it. Bigger and more importantly is we have one of the largest firms, or a very large firm in Canada now working as part of the project team. They, of course before they accept this and move on and sign off on a final product, will be doing their own inspections and audits.

Now, I’m surprised that the Member, who I believe is a card carrying Conservative, would say that the Conservative government would not honour their commitment, that the federal Minister of Finance won’t honour his commitment. I put a huge weight on the fact that we have a commitment from Mr. Flaherty to work with us on that and his staff have followed up with our staff. So we know that work is progressing on that basis.

Now, for actual technical pieces and some of the calls of question, you know, we’re protected as Members in this House, but that still should not allow us to throw out words and rhetoric that damage reputations of firms and individuals in the Northwest Territories or anywhere else we do business. So I would urge the Member, if he had facts, then he should be up to the Minister’s office to lay them down so that we could ensure that all the things that were done, but from what’s been laid out with our partnership, with the new project management team, with their credibility on the line, I am fully satisfied they will do that and I’m sure the Minister of Transportation will be able to give more detailed information on that project team. Thank you.

Thank you, Premier Roland. Minister Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In response to the comments, some of them being very serious allegations that there has been discrepancies that are not being dealt with, I certainly, as the Premier indicated, would appreciate if that information would be brought to my attention. I would believe that some of the pictures that he’s looking at, some of it we have in our own possession. There is no doubt some deficiencies that we are dealing with, some have been dealt with and some are scheduled to be resolved over the next little while and a scour rock is a deficiency that’s been noted, it hasn’t been paid for. We have held back on it and we have talked to the project people that were on site and confirmed that the cement work that was referred to in some of the piers has been looked at. The people that did repairs and inspected it claim that they’re all completed. We have documentation, they’ve signed it off and there are other companies that have a very credible stake in here that also inspected it as independent companies; Levelton and BPTEC was also involved in quality assurance.

So, Mr. Chairman, we have many experts on the job. There are many layers of inspection that take place. The contractor has inspectors on site. The Deh Cho Bridge Corporation had a firm that they utilized. The lenders also had a company that took part in inspections and knew what was going on on a daily basis, and of course we had our people that were on site and reviewed the information. So I would appreciate if the Member could bring that information forward and we could qualify whether there’s any merit to it. I believe it’s some deficiencies that we’ve already noted and I would be glad to provide the detail to the Member so that he can be reassured as this project is going forward.

We have to also ensure that the public has the security of knowing that the safety of their families and themselves are being looked after and that’s our first consideration, Mr. Chairman. That’s something we need to work out. If the Member is hearing things, if the Member has information, we need to get our hands on it and he should bring that information forward and to as to where he’s getting it from. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. We’re on page 5, 2010-2011, Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, (Infrastructure Expenditures), Transportation, capital investment expenditures, highways, not previously authorized, $165.439 million. Next on my list is Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have several areas of concern, but my main area of concern is the financial situation that the Deh Cho Bridge will find the GNWT in. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance, I guess the Premier, if he would be able to provide loan details of the details of the $165 million loan that was taken by the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. My understanding is that we guaranteed the loan. Therefore, I’d like to know if the Minister or the Premier will be able to provide the details of that loan. That’s my first question.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding is that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transportation in meetings with committee members provided that information and we’ll be able to provide it again to the Members regarding the breakdown of that loan.

Now, we need to be clear on the language we use because initially the reason this project was put through the DCBC was to keep it off our accounting or off our books and we couldn’t guarantee the debt in that sense, but we indemnified or we, through the guaranteed payments on the 35-year concession agreement, we in fact backstopped as a full agreement and I referenced that back in February 2001 in questions in this House, or February 21, 2008, on that area. But I’ll see if that information was provided and we’ll be able to provide that again to Members and I’ll have to ask the Minister of Finance what he has there and what he can provide. Thank you.