Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve got some more questions today for the Minister of Transportation, getting back to my Member’s statement where I talked about delays in construction. Going back to some of the things the Minister has said in the past, he had mentioned to the House and to Members that construction would take place from both sides of the river on the project to ensure the completion date of November 2011. It would appear that that’s not happening, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister why construction hasn’t taken place on both sides of that river so that it could meet in the middle as the Minister had told this House previously. Thank you.
Minister of Transportation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The plan is to still meet in the middle, but the approach has changed somewhat, as the Member has indicated. The delay in steel has caused the approach to change. The plan is now to work on the north side and things are going very well. The contractor has been doing some very good work in launching the steel. We should be hitting the fourth pier or the final pier on the north side relatively soon and construction will continue with the tower as we deal with the breakup of the ice. The plan is to have all the trusses be worked on and put together during the breakup time and be ready for launching as soon as the river is clear.
Mr. Speaker, we still are working towards our goal of having the bridge opened in the fall and there’s no denying there are challenges out there. The delay of steel is one. The breakup of the river is another one, and as I indicated the other day in questions during question period, the ability for us or for our contractor to do work that was planned for warmer weather that has to be done in the cold season or the latter part of the fall is something that we have to work out.
There are many things that are out there that challenge us almost every day. If the weather is colder than minus 35, then we for sure have to take into consideration the safety of the workers and I think there’s a policy that restricts them from working in that temperature. If there are strong winds, they can’t be up on the towers. Those towers are way up in the air on top of the ice and that’s an issue. Also, we were challenged this year when we were caught off guard with the ferry shutting down. That was also cause for delay.
So there are many things. We are in continual contact with the contractor and I’m very confident we have a good team and things are continuing to move forward.
I thank the Minister for that. Part of the initial budget on the $92 million contract between the Deh Cho Bridge and Ruskin would not have included the need to take out that temporary bridge and put it back in again a few weeks after breakup to allow construction on the south side. I’d like to ask the Minister how much is taking the temporary bridge out and putting it back in going to cost and who’s going to pay for that. Thank you.
Thank you. It’s a difficult situation we’re in. We have our contractors that are listening to this discussion, we’ve already been contacted by the contractors raising concerns over some of the Member’s comments that are in the contract. There’s a proprietary issue that we’re dealing with here. These issues are dealt with in the contract. I’m not in a position to disclose it at this time, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have to reassure the Member that these issues were things that were taken into consideration. Thank you.
I appreciate the work the contractor is doing there. My apologies for trying to get some answers on the $200 million that the taxpayers of the Northwest Territories have hanging out there on this project. So, again, I’m going to ask questions and continue to ask questions about this project in an effort to protect the taxpayers here in the Northwest Territories and find out what our real risks are with this project.
I’d like to ask the Minister again, yesterday I asked him a pretty straightforward question: who would be responsible for cost overruns and construction delays on this project? Would it be the Government of the Northwest Territories or would it be the contractor? The Minister mentioned something about potential loss of revenue due to the contract going past the completion date. It wasn’t what I was looking for. I just want to know whose responsibility it is. Thank you.
It would depend on who the responsibility of the delay or the cost overrun, who it would apply to. If it was the contractor’s issue, then they would have to eat those costs. If it was the responsibility of our government, if it was an issue that could be attributed to something we did or we were responsible for, then we’d have to pay for it.
Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I thank the Minister for that. In the interview the project manager did with the CBC he said the bridge’s general contractor, it will be up to them to figure out how to make up the lost time and pay for any added costs. I’d like to ask the Minister, is that exactly how this is going to work? Thank you.
Yes, but, Mr. Speaker... Mr. Speaker, that’s correct, but if there are any issues that arise that are attributed to something we’ve done or that are under our responsibility, then we would have to absorb those costs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
