That’s not the report that I am receiving. The report that I’m receiving is the construction from the Inuvik side and the construction from the Tuk side is going well, that all of the material we’re putting on the road is not disappearing into the tundra. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hear that the gravel being used is primarily fine material, it’s almost sand with the odd boulder in it, some of the worst material with which to build a highly challenging project in the most challenging of all environments and we still don’t know what we’re paying for royalties on this under-grade stuff.
What is the gravel situation and what are the costs, Mr. Speaker? When will we give this project a critical review to test its real mettle?
I don’t know the various costs of the components broken down into the cost of gravel and so on. As far as the royalties go, yes, we are getting close to coming up with a price that we’re both happy with between ourselves as a government and the land claim organization who owns the land. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask a few further questions for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d like to follow up with some of the things he referenced in some of his answers, one of which disturbed me when the Minister, at one point, said get on with it, we need to get on with the project. It goes back to my unfortunate feeling that everybody connected with that project wants to just get on with it and they aren’t willing to consider residents’ concerns.
The Minister mentioned delays that would be caused by accepting recommendations by the environmental assessment report, but I’d like to know from the Minister, if he can explain to me, why the environmental assessment took five years to get done. My understanding is the government had a great deal to do with the length of time for that EA.
Can the Minister tell me if we, at that point – we, the GNWT – were doing everything we could to move the EA along? Were the delays caused by this government or another government? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that all the parties did the best that they could to move this process along. It’s very complicated and there are a lot of players. There’s a lot of interest, lots of advice and recommendations and all the decisions being made on the process and the decisions made were on what was going to be done in terms of freezing and those types of things all took time. Thank you.
To the Minister, yes, things take time, but I don’t think it should take five years for an environmental assessment. Goodness knows when it took that long for the pipeline, people were screaming that it was far too long.
The Minister quoted from a letter from 2012, I believe he was referencing the Oversight Working Group at that point, and I feel strongly we need an independent oversight group, which apparently has been rejected, or which I know has been rejected. So the Oversight Working Group, from my understanding, has not met since September of 2012, shortly after the letter I think the Minister referenced.
I’d like to know from the Minister if this oversight group has not met in over a year’s time, how am I to be comforted that we have good oversight on that project. Thank you.
As MLA, I think the Member would be very hard to comfort on this issue. It’s clear she wants total acceptance of the report, and no questions asked, cost is not an issue, those types of things don’t matter and somehow that report should be taken totally as is because a lot of people provided their recommendations. They did a lot of work. We appreciate the work, we’re looking at the work and using a lot of the recommendations, but no responsible government would be wise just to take things at face value without taking a look at them, especially when we’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars we have and are going to continue to invest in this project. Thank you.
I have to ask the Minister how he can say that they are taking a look at them when we have a letter from the project team which rejects these recommendations.
We’ve accepted some, we’ve modified some and we’ve rejected some. It’s not accurate to say that we’ve rejected the recommendations. We have an obligation to be thorough and due diligence and look at the work that we’re doing, look at the advice and recommendations from other parties, and we’ve done that. We’ve agreed with some, modified some and some we’ve rejected.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, one of the ones that have been rejected that I’ve referenced several times is an independent oversight. If we have to accept a non-independent oversight body, the Oversight Working Group has been working on an environmental agreement. It’s been worked on for many years. I’d like to ask the Minister when will the oversight group get back to the table and finalize this environmental agreement. Thank you.
We’re prepared to, and want to, engage to resolve this issue. The letter is very positive about what we still see as the potential for the role of an oversight group when it comes to advice and recommendations as opposed to final say and vetoes. So we have to resolve that issue. It’s a very fundamental one, but there’s still a lot of good work that can be done. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Transportation. I’d like to talk to the Minister about the Mackenzie Valley Highway. The Minister has a proposal called Corridors for Canada III. I want to ask the Minister if there’s any type of signal or indication on the efforts on the part of the Government of the Northwest Territories, as to where that proposal is within the Government of Canada to see what type of support we’ll have to start building that important highway.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our Corridors III proposal has an element there that is targeting the Mackenzie Valley Highway and we are looking at a budget that has been released by the government on things of national significance. They have $4 billion in there and we are trying to get a piece of that to do some of the work for the future Mackenzie Valley Highway. Thank you.
We talked earlier about the increase of oil and gas in the Sahtu and I want to ask the Minister if he has had any type of preliminary discussions with his federal counterparts to see that this important proposal seeks a favourable response so we can start developing the resources in the Sahtu in a responsible manner and that the Mackenzie Valley Highway is a must for the people in the Northwest Territories.
At this time we are discussing the feasibility of perhaps traveling to Ottawa to discuss this directly with the Minister, or waiting for the federal government to do the allocations based on whichever way they intend to allocate the money that’s put into all of this, including money for the Building Canada Plan or any money as far as municipal infrastructure. Thank you.
Thank you. The delegation that actively lobbied for the Inuvik-Tuk highway did a successful job. I’m sure they can use some of their points as to how to start working on the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Specifically, I’m speaking from Wrigley all the way up to the Dempster Highway. I’m looking at a huge chunk of the road into the Sahtu, and with the oil and gas activity, I’ve asked the Minister, is there a game plan from the Government of the Northwest Territories when they go down to Ottawa to lobby the government, who then would see the importance of this highway, along with the activity that we could start earlier in building the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Thank you.
Thank you. Yes, our intention is to lobby the federal government with the whole Corridors for Canada III. We have not completely determined how we are going to do that, but we are developing a plan to approach the government. Whether we do it and communicate with them in writing or if we communicate with them face-to-face is something that we have yet to determine. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think one of the most effective ways is to lobby, to go down face-to-face with your partners to show the benefits of the Mackenzie Valley Highway from Wrigley further up north. I want to ask the Minister, is that something the Members will have some input on as to what type of lobbying will seek the most benefit from our proposal in Corridors III.
Thank you. Again, we haven’t made a final determination of what that lobbying would look like. We can keep the Members advised as we move through the plan to determine how we hope to launch our lobbying efforts with the federal government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first set of oral questions was, if I may define it as chapter one on the Deh Cho Bridge today. Now chapter two, I’d like to talk about the deficiencies and certainly the outstanding deficiencies left on the Deh Cho Bridge. I see the Minister is flipping papers so I’ll do a little bit of a stretched out intro.
The issue is such that we need to fully understand what the deficiencies are. So, I’d like to ask the Minister about some of them in particular, but let’s start off by enlightening the public. With the list of deficiencies, although I don’t have them, would the Minister be willing to table publicly what all the deficiencies are and what we estimate are the true costs of outstanding deficiencies, as well, can we compare that to the amount of money we still have left on the project to address all these deficiencies? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure of what deficiencies the Member is speaking of. I know there was some work being completed on the bridge and that work is underway. I think the majority of that work is completed at this time. Thank you.
Thank you. There are a lot of deficiencies and I understand are still outstanding on this particular bridge. As such, that’s why I was asking for it publicly. I don’t have a copy, but I can certainly start with one of the deficiencies to enlighten him.
As I understand, right now the scour rock issue at the Deh Cho Bridge is still outstanding and I thought it was being addressed through a negotiated contract. Would the Minister be able to confirm if there was a negotiated contract to solve the scour rock problem and, as such, is it still in place? Because I certainly have seen not one but two tenders on the same issue come forward. So if the Minister could enlighten the House on that. Thank you.
Thank you. The piers have been mapped with scour rock over the past summer. There has been a stockpile of rock, 6,000 cubic metres of rock has been stockpiled. A public tender for shaping and placing the rock is out and it closes today. Thank you.
Thank you. So, then, there are deficiencies. Okay, so how much was the negotiated contract negotiated for with the folks in Fort Providence in partnership with Ruskin? Thank you.
Thank you. As I indicated, the tender for shaping and placing of the scour rock, the tender is out. The bids are in and the tender is closed, but I don’t have the costs because I don’t have the evaluation of the tenders at this time. Thank you.
Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How much is left in the reserve to address all these deficiencies and would the Minister table publicly a list of all the deficiencies so we know what we’re dealing with? Thank you.
Thank you. There is $7 million left to do any of the deficiencies. There’s a list of deficiencies beyond the piers, the scour rock around the piers. I can present that. I could table it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in follow-up to my colleague Ms. Bisaro’s questions with respect to the Giant Mine. I’d like to ask the Minister of the Environment, I know he’s aware that there’s a potential conflict of interest here with the proponent, the double role that the government is playing in this case being that there is no mining company and we are both the proponent and the regulator. Now the federal government has developed a firewall to try and keep the processes separate between the regulatory side and the proponent side.
Do we have such a firewall between the two components to avoid such a conflict of interest in the GNWT’s situation? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. We as well try to make sure we work to make sure we have those same type of firewalls. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I’m glad we have that and I hope the Minister at some point can explain to us in detail how that works. But for now, I’m sure I heard the Minister say that he has rejected some of the environmental assessment recommendations, accepted some and proposing to modify some, accept, reject and modify, but I’m not aware of any decisions having been made at the Ministerial level yet on these environmental assessment recommendations.
Was the Minister speaking for himself or was he speaking on behalf of the proponent team, the actual project team, which is the proponent in this case?
At this juncture, I was speaking to the contents of the letter that was written to Mr. Spence and signed off by both governments.
I’m sure we’ll see in the Hansard tomorrow exactly what the words were, but I think they were very plain. The Minister said I have rejected some, I have accepted some, and so on.
Could the Minister tell us what exactly has he done here? Has he suggested that he has accepted, rejected and proposed to modify some to the federal Minister, and where is the clarity on this conflict of interest situation?
No, I haven’t spoken to the federal Minister directly on this issue.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
