Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, the request for tenders closed on April 1, 2015, for the widening of the Dempster Highway. I’d like to ask the Minister, why is this contract not awarded yet? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are several stages of approvals that we go through when we’re dealing with the Building Canada Fund. The next step is to take all of the money that we have over the next 10 years and put them into bundles under $100 million, and we had submitted our first bundle to the federal government and right now it’s going through a review. We feel it’s very close to being approved.
Because the bundles have negotiated contracts in them, it was important that the federal government ran it through the Treasury Board. What we’ve done is we’ve been providing information to Infrastructure Canada. In turn, they’re providing it to the Treasury Board. So, we’re at the very final stages. Our Minister of Infrastructure has been in contact with Infrastructure Canada and is also trying to assist us to move that approval along, but at this time we are expecting approval on June 4th, actually.
As I mentioned, with the weather we have in August and September, it’s really important that we begin this work in June and July.
Will the Minister ensure that future contracts be awarded at least by the end of May in the years to come? Thank you.
This bundle that we submitted is four years’ worth of projects. Next year it will be approved, so we would be able to go through the tender process a lot quicker. We have tendered in advance in anticipation of approvals from the federal government. So, at this point, as soon as the approvals come, we would be in a very good position to make the awards. As soon as we get approval we’ll make the awards. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
