Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s no secret that the Deh Cho Bridge Project has had its difficulties. It’s critical that we continue to reflect back on some of the experiences that have happened and learn from every opportunity how we can fix the mistakes and certainly not repeat them in the future. My questions today are specifically in relation to the GNWT’s relationship with the project lender who, for some reason, cut off access to the construction account sometime in February or March 2010. My questions are directed to the Minister of Finance.
Has the GNWT conducted any investigation or review into the reasons why the Deh Cho Bridge Project lenders took the unusual steps of cutting off access to the construction account in early 2010, and how might we have prevented ourselves from getting into this situation? If we have not done this, why haven’t we done this?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think our first priority as a government and Legislature is in fact to put all our efforts into making sure that the bridge gets concluded, that it gets opened and operating and generating the revenue that has been budgeted for and will provide that service to Northerners as well as help lighten our fiscal burden.
The questions the Member has raised have been discussed. Has there been a formal debriefing? Has there been a formal forensic review and post-mortem? No, there hasn’t at this point. In due course when the project is, in fact, concluded and up and running, there will be that opportunity to look as we go forward on learning from this process. Thank you.
I have to say I’m kind of disappointed by that last answer by the Finance Minister, because, quite frankly, the lenders cutting off funding to the territorial government through the Deh Cho Bridge have nothing to do with the ongoing process. That process has been done. That bridge has been burnt. It’s over. So now is our chance to look at the situation.
There must have been significant correspondence from the lender. I’m asking the Finance Minister would he be willing to provide the correspondence between the Department of Finance and the lenders to Members of this side of the House as well as committee members so we can look at some of the reasons why they chose to cut off the financial accounts to the GNWT in early 2010.
What I will commit to is when the project is completed, we will do a review, a post-mortem to make sure that we learn the lessons necessary on what worked well, what didn’t work as well, how we structured ourselves, and the very many other issues that may flow out of that. I know the Member has indicated a very specific interest, but by just providing single pieces of correspondence or a sheaf of correspondence on a very, very complex process without a broad context and having all the pieces together would be counterproductive, in my mind, and we’re not in the position to do that until the project is done and we do that post-mortem. Thank you.
I’ve heard several indications that there was an attempt to undermine the GNWT’s position by calling and harassing the lenders about the GNWT being incompetent and unable to manage this type of loan. I’ve heard this from various sources that expressed this quite adamantly. I would think the Finance Minister would be quite concerned and shocked by that suggestion.
The fact is we can’t have the reputation of the GNWT put at risk. I ask the Minister, once again, if this type of concern is out there, what would stop him from wanting to get to the bottom of why the lenders pulled the carpet out from the GNWT, put such financial risk on our government directly and caused us to have increases, major increases to the Deh Cho Bridge project, and now sitting here and waiting and saying, well, when it’s done. We should be doing this now.
In fact, I was, if my memory serves me correctly, the Minister of Finance at the time as we dealt with the very many bumps in the road that were there with the Deh Cho Bridge. We’ve managed our way through that, I think, in a very constructive way. The project is nearing completion.
The Member has indicated that he has had indications and he has had some sources tell him things. I don’t know who those people are. I can tell him and can tell you in this House and the people of the Northwest Territories, we have a project that is nearing completion, that once it is built everyone will stand up and say that’s a very good project.
This is long overdue and we would never want to go back to ferries and ice roads. We will do the post-mortem. We will share that and we will do that in due course in the fullness of time.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The fullness of time is always the worst response from this Minister, because it could be a lifetime. It is not an answer, Mr. Speaker. Quite frankly, this Minister should be concerned that this project financing, that portfolio, that file got pulled out and embarrassed on his shoulders while this happened. And he should have fought like heck to make sure it didn’t, Mr. Speaker.
The fact is, this should be investigated. I’m not calling for a royal commission on this particular issue, I’m talking about will he start a process getting this kicked off, because this could take several years, and to wait for the fullness of the project to come to fruition could be years away. If they want to defend doing nothing, they’re accepting and supporting nothing. The question really comes back to let’s get to action. Why defend doing nothing when we could be doing something?
A point of fact, the Member has no idea how I feel and he has no idea how hard I fought or not fought on this issue.
I think the proof is in the pudding. We have a project that is nearing completion. There have been challenges, without a doubt, and they’ve been reported and debated and discussed in this House and in the press.
Our first priority and our first full attention is to get the project done and completed, and open to traffic and generating revenue. After that, we have committed to doing a full post-mortem and we will make sure that that information is shared. It has nothing to do with our not caring or not being concerned.
We’ve been on this, like I said, I was the Finance Minister in the last government, and this issue has consumed a lot of time, as everyone well knows. Our first job is to complete that project and then we will honour the commitment for the post-mortem.
