Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier and I’d like to follow up with him on some questions that I asked last week in regard to the Auditor General’s report on the Deh Cho Bridge.
We’ve received a lot of information since last week and I am not asking questions to point fingers and assign blame at this point; I’m trying to clarify a couple of things, which I don’t believe I got answers to last week.
In February of 2008, the government changed regulations to provide what is a standard indemnity for the bridge project lenders and a by-product of that was the removal of the requirement to provide notice of that change to Members. There was a 14-day notice period, apparently. I’d like to ask the Premier again, why were Members not advised, even if we had to be advised after the fact, that this regulation change had occurred. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The indemnification that occurred is a normal part of business and part of that is the requirement to notify Members 14 days in advance, I think is the crux of the matter here, but that is a normal part of the process. There wasn’t an extra decision to not provide that. So it was just a part of normal process and through our many briefings to committee, Members were aware that this indemnification occurred. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier. I am not suggesting that this was not a standard indemnity. I think I mentioned that in my preamble. My concern is that there was obviously in the regulations an indication that notice was required and by changing the regulations and waiving the advanced notice that’s fine, but communication has been a problem in the four years or three and a half years since I’ve been here and I would have thought the Premier would have considered that communication of such a change to Members was a good thing.
I’d like to know, again, from the Premier, when the Financial Administration Act was changed in 1998, there was apparently, according to Hansard, quite a discussion about the need to provide this 14-day advance notice. So I’d like to know from the Premier, knowing that the notice was in there, knowing that this advance notice was important to Members, why did he not consider that we ought to be advised. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, there is no requirement through indemnities for providing Members that. The Members are getting hooked up on... I believe there’s a requirement over the $500,000 figure, 14 days’ notice that’s honoured. In the requirement for indemnities, that process has been followed. There wasn’t a change in regulation to make it, so that process was excluded. Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t believe I have yet today indicated that I think anything was circumvented. I’m trying to get from the Premier what the rationale was to not advise us. Yes, I understand that the notice period was waived, but was there not some consideration that maybe we might want to know about that? The Premier advised last week that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure was advised of these changes, and I believe I asked last week if I could see copies of the presentations that have been made to committee. I didn’t hear an answer. I’d like to ask him again if he would commit to get me that documentation from February or March -- I’m not sure -- of 2008. Thank you.
Thank you. As I believe I said, but I will confirm, that in fact when we responded to the standing committee it was a request to Executive to do an overview of this process on the Deh Cho Bridge Project and that was provided to committee and we’ll send it again. In there it referenced the fact that the Financial Administration Act was under review to look at these types of issues as future governments would look towards these types of projects or indemnifications.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for that commitment. I will look forward to receiving that document. I’d like to ask the Premier, he’s referenced that the Financial Administration Act has been under review. I know that I think there’s consideration for changes to the act coming up. I’d like to know from the Premier, considering that this is an issue for Members at least on this side of the House in terms of notification, is this an issue that the Premier would consider might be something that should be discussed between Regular Members and Cabinet in terms of a Caucus protocol to deal with this kind of communication?
Again, in our many communications -- and we have quite a number of letters that have gone back to committee -- this has been raised. This has been committed to look at through the Financial Administration Act. I think that question is mute. We have in fact been looking towards dealing with this subject matter.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
