Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Transportation today. Once again we find this government buying a pig in a poke. We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars of our citizens’ precious infrastructure dollars in a black hole project whose costs we do not even know. Having authorized $70 million for ‘14-15 for the Inuvik-Tuk highway, we are now an incredible $160 million into this project, and we do not even have a firm estimate of the cost. We are just saying it’s capped at $300 million so we are going to shoehorn it into this estimate. How can this be? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Speaker, I do believe that we have a fairly decent cost estimate on the cost of the Inuvik-Tuk highway. Although the budget is just under $300 million, we’re expecting the actual construction cost to be well under that. There will be other additional costs such as design, engineering and so on; however, the actual construction costs of the highway would be under that. The department is confident that we will come within the budget that we set. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as per our worst fears, this is looking more and more like the Deh Cho Bridge Project, only worse. We are going into it with our eyes open. Is there no law on the books to protect our residents’ money by saying the government must have a firm estimate of a project cost before committing to it? If not, does this Minister agree that we should have one? Mahsi.
Like I indicated, we think we do have a good estimate. As the Members know, the money that we are getting from the federal government is not going to be just money given to us without us having proper estimates and so on. So before the money from the federal government starts to flow into our coffers, we have to be able to demonstrate to the federal government that we know what we’re doing and what the cost of the road is going to be. Thank you.
As we pour money down this black hole, which we know will drain our coffers for decades to come, we are hearing rumours that the gravel being laid is sinking into the tundra. Mr. Speaker, what is the Minister not telling us about this albatross?
That’s not the report that I am receiving. The report that I’m receiving is the construction from the Inuvik side and the construction from the Tuk side is going well, that all of the material we’re putting on the road is not disappearing into the tundra. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hear that the gravel being used is primarily fine material, it’s almost sand with the odd boulder in it, some of the worst material with which to build a highly challenging project in the most challenging of all environments and we still don’t know what we’re paying for royalties on this under-grade stuff.
What is the gravel situation and what are the costs, Mr. Speaker? When will we give this project a critical review to test its real mettle?
I don’t know the various costs of the components broken down into the cost of gravel and so on. As far as the royalties go, yes, we are getting close to coming up with a price that we’re both happy with between ourselves as a government and the land claim organization who owns the land. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
