Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to be speaking on the Deh Cho Bridge and the need for an independent audit and a process regarding a number of the problems.
All I can say is, if FDR was alive today, I’m sure he would describe the Deh Cho Bridge as this: The Deh Cho Bridge is a project that will live in infamy. Why? Because it has been cursed with problems. I may describe it as a ship of our great territory. I would say that it appears to have been launched without the bottle being broken, cursed from the beginning.
We all know that the 1,045 metre structure was supposed to be the pride of every territorial citizen. It has been a dream upon many since the ‘50s, but it wasn’t until that magic pen signed that original deal back in 2007 and the sod was turned. I would say that this project would have never seen the light without that initiative.
From the start it seemed to be under some type of grey cloud. Now, as we start to reflect and look back and, as I say, we look forward, do we want to continue the same types of errors?
The Deh Cho Bridge itself was built on complicated and ever-shifting sands. We are here today because of those things. To begin with, we can’t even continue without mentioning the fact that it was even launched without a reliable design, which was only finished halfway through the project. How do we be proud of a project like this and realize without taking the opportunity to look back? It’s time for an independent audit on this whole process.
As a Member of this Assembly during that time, it was a turbulent and emotional problem. As I recall, there was much political will being tugged and towed in both directions. Do we help the people from Providence who wanted the bridge under their leadership, under their vision and under their guidance, or do we continue to hunker down and plow our way through it and say, shame, this bridge will never work?
I believed in the bridge concept from the start, but there always seemed to be problems with it, even in the Assembly here. I had often heard stories about Members calling and complaining to the Toronto lending company about the instability of the bridge organization and the inability for Members to support the project. It’s things like this that sank the process and caused problems all the way through. We need to find out what the truth was. Why did the GNWT get saddled with the $200 million line of credit, or I should say loan in this case, and in the end that could have collapsed this government?
I will have questions for the Minister who now is the Minister of Transportation, to ask him about some of the failings of this particular project and maybe what we need to look into for public scrutiny. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
