Debates of May 23, 2008 (day 14)

Date
May
23
2008
Session
16th Assembly, 2nd Session
Day
14
Speaker
Members Present
Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Beaulieu, Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Bromley, Hon. Paul Delorey, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Jacobson, Mr. Krutko, Hon. Jackson Lafferty, Hon. Sandy Lee, Hon. Bob McLeod, Hon. Michael McLeod, Mr. McLeod, Mr. Menicoche, Hon. Michael Miltenberger, Mr. Ramsay, Hon. Floyd Roland, Hon. Norman Yakeleya.
Topics
Statements

Question 167-16(2) Deh Cho Bridge Project

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier, and it gets back to my Member’s statement talking about the Deh Cho Bridge project. We’re all well aware that the project is moving ahead and going forward. During the past four years I’ve probably asked close to a hundred questions on the Deh Cho Bridge project itself, trying to get a better understanding of what the government was doing and why it was doing it.

On February 8 I asked a number of written questions to the Premier in regard to what level of detailed information the government and Department of Transportation had at their disposal in order to sign the concession agreement on September 28. I just wanted to mention that a response to a written question that was tabled in the House yesterday is missing a response to question 2. The government admits to basically not having any updated cost-benefit analyses prior to signing the $165 million deal. As I said earlier, that is just absurd.

I know the Premier is committed to doing a post-mortem on the accountability to try to find out exactly why this happened and how it happened, how public funds were put at risk. I’d like to ask the Premier where he is at in this post-mortem on this bridge.

Speaker: Mr. Speaker

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m working with the Department of Executive, pulling all the dates, times and all of the process that unfolded, looking at our legislation, looking at the process and looking at how we can tighten it up. That work is ongoing. I’ll have to get an update here within days, and I can get back to the Member as to when we hope to bring on our responses forward to committee. The work is ongoing.

We have to be clear on this. We’re also trying to relook at history here. There were all kinds of meetings, as we tabled in this House back to Members, about meetings, times, events. If you want to relive that again, the dreams about bridges, the fact is that the Government of the Northwest Territories.... If we held ourselves to the same measures that some Members are trying to hold government to on one project, we would have to close three-quarters of our communities and move them into Yellowknife or maybe move Yellowknife or the Northwest Territories into a small community in Alberta or B.C.

When we talk about the message we’re trying to send to Canada and the fact that we need investment in the Northwest Territories in stuff like hydro development, in stuff like the Mackenzie Valley Highway — when we talk about the cost per capita, they could easily come back to us and say it’s not cost-effective to invest in the Northwest Territories. But they do, because we are part of Canada, and they recognize that difference. We’ve got to start doing that same thing in the Northwest Territories.

I don’t dispute the fact that we should be doing some of that fine work that the Premier talks about, but we should have a foundation of information in order to base our decisions.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Premier pretty much a point-blank question: how could any government sign a $165 million concession agreement three days prior to an election, with a five-year-old piece of cost-benefit analysis work being their only instrument that they have at their disposal? How could that happen? How is that good government, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, like I’m telling the people of Canada, the federal government and the Prime Minister, the Mackenzie Valley Highway is of national interest. It will help us economically, and it will help us develop the territory. That project is in a similar fashion; it’s not only one piece that you make your decision on.

Where’s the vision? We need to ask ourselves: where’s the vision for the Northwest Territories? Do we want to stay with a “hat-in-hand” mentality, going to Ottawa saying: Give us more; give us more? Or instead: Give us the tools, and we can build the Northwest Territories.

The Premier has a good point there: we need to come up with a vision; we need to engage the stakeholders here in the Northwest Territories. In this project the stakeholders weren’t engaged. They were engaged in 2002 and 2003. The government has yet to prove to residents in the North Slave region that the cost of living will not go up as a result of this bridge being built. Where’s that evidence, Mr. Speaker? I’d like to ask the Premier that question. Thank you.

I think that question has been answered a number of times — of course, not to the satisfaction of the Member. I think all you have to do right now is drive through some of the business parking lots and look at all the tractor-trailer units parked in their parking lots, because they had to stock up for the closing of the ice crossing. Let’s ask the businesses that.

Speaker: Mr. Speaker

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Speaker, that’s the problem: they didn’t go back out and they didn’t ask the businesses. They asked them in 2002 and in 2003. They didn’t go back out, prior to signing that concession agreement on September 28, and talk to the stakeholders in the North Slave region.

I would like to ask the Premier: what is the timeline for coming back with this look into exactly what happened, so the residents of the Northwest Territories can finally get a better picture of how exactly the government put $165 million at risk? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I told the Member in an earlier question already today, earlier in this line of questioning, that I would be going back to the Executive to get the timeline and come back to the Member. I’m prepared to do that.

But let’s be realistic here. We’re talking about an investment in the Northwest Territories. The Member sees it as risk. I think we’re making investments in the Northwest Territories for the betterment of the Northwest Territories, for the long-term credibility and development of the Northwest Territories.

Speaker: Mr. Speaker

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.