Mr. Speaker, my questions are directed to the Minister of Public Works and Services. Over the years the G.N.W.T. has used a number of different methods to facilitate and advance infrastructure projects. One of these is a Public/Private Partnership, an example of which we’re currently experiencing.
As the G.N.W.T.’s infrastructure deficit grows ever larger, it is likely that P3 projects or business-facilitated projects will become more and more commonplace. I’m concerned that this government does not have adequate policies and procedures in place to adequately handle and monitor these kinds of projects.
I’d like to ask the Minister: do we currently have any document in place that outlines the process to be followed for P3 projects — things like parameters for agreements between parties, project management and so on?
Mr. Speaker, I’d have to go to the department to see what we have in place, but I’d venture to say that all P3 initiatives are done on a case-by-case basis. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister’s willingness to look into this issue, and I would hope he would do that and report back.
Does the Minister agree that there is a need for developing a policy to administer P3 projects?
There have been very few projects brought forward to this government that are classified as P3. I believe there was one in Fort Smith many years ago. A lot of work was done in the area of policy development in and around P3 projects. The other one is the Deh Cho Bridge, of course. As we move forward, there needs to be more analysis done as the federal government has, as part of the building Canada plan, a funding initiative that’s referred to as the P3 models. We need to move forward if we’re going to access some of those dollars.
Mr. Speaker, I think I heard the Minister said yes in there, that he would look into a policy. Having assumed that yes, there is a policy about to be formulated, I’d like to know when that might happen and when we could expect to see the completed document.
We as a government have committed to doing a lot of work in the area of infrastructure and infrastructure development and all the different aspects, including planning of budgets and looking at the costs and being able to accommodate the contracts so they get out earlier. I would be glad to try to include…. We’ve agreed that we will be as comprehensive as we can, and I’d be glad to bring the issue of the P3 forward to that committee for consideration.
Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Mr. Speaker, I was going to ask the Minister if he would come back to committee for input, but he’s beat me to the punch, so good for you.
I would urge the Minister to get a policy in place as soon as possible. These kinds of projects are somewhat unusual, and we need to have as much governance, as much of an umbrella for overseeing these projects as possible.
If the Minister could respond to my question in terms of timing — I realize that “as soon as possible” could mean tomorrow; it could also mean three years from now — if he could give me a narrower time frame, I’d appreciate that.
The infrastructure committee has been meeting since this government was formed and cabinet was selected. We have a lot of work in front of us. There is some desire to have some recommendations brought forward. We need to review a lot of the policies. We’d have to upgrade some of the policies. We’d have to also develop new ones. I’m trying to be very careful not to make a commitment we may not live by, but I would suspect that we could start presenting some of the initial findings very soon, hopefully by the next sitting.
