Thank you. I’ll chime in, as well, and I think this is exactly what I was talking about in my Member’s statement about us working with businesses in the Northwest Territories.
The Minister indicated we were working with the company, yes, and that’s the problem. We were working with the company on a whole bunch of different problems and it’s taken four years with me as an MLA to get this to the floor of the House. The company has been very leery to take it to the House because they want to deal with the Department of Transportation. They have many contracts with them. We have them over a barrel. We paid out Ruskin.
Why did we pay out Ruskin and now are not willing to pay out Rowe’s?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Ruskin built a bridge for us. We had to pay them. Thank you.
I am referring to Ruskin was on the job before ATCON started. We paid them out. We paid out several contractors that were doing work for ATCON that they held us accountable for the bridge. Rowe’s didn’t have that leverage. Why did we pay all those other contractors and we’re not paying Rowe’s?
As I indicated in one of the responses, I don’t have the list of individuals that were paid out or the circumstances surrounding the payout. What I’m dealing with is the payout of a company, Rowe’s Construction, at this point. What we’re indicating is that we have the money to finish the bridge, clean up all the deficiencies. If we’re going to pay over and above that, if we’re going to pay for a deal that somebody made with another company that went bankrupt on the job, then we’d have to come back to the House for more money. It’s that simple. We can’t take money out of there and then pay somebody and then come back in here and say we need more money for deficiencies.
We know and the government is willing to say we’re using ATCON, a company that’s no longer there, using them as leverage. But when the government has inspectors in the project, they inspect the whole process. We had a whole bunch of stuff that was outside of the scope of the project. We hauled a whole bunch more rock from a longer distance. The Department of Transportation knew that. They gave approval to it and Rowe’s did that work.
Again, the Minister is indicating that there’s a merit there. Why are we not paying the bills based on a merit that we’ve given?
We’re not paying it because we don’t have the proper documentation indicating that there was a contract between Rowe’s Construction and we’re not paying it because the money that we got was not for this. The money that we got from the New Brunswick government was to pay for the deficiencies of the bridge, not to cover unfinished business by ATCON that wasn’t paid out. We don’t have any written authorization from ATCON. We don’t have any documentation. There is really nothing there other than the discussions that Mr. Rowe has been having with DOT, and based on that we are continuing to work on solutions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister keeps talking about we’re not done the bridge, and I’m not sure when we’re going to get that done. We know we’ve added stuff to the contract. We know we’ve added guardrails. We know we’ve added telephones to the system. Now we’re spending more money and the reason that this is on the floor today is because now we’re going to spend another 12 to 30 million dollars on the Tuk-Inuvik Highway. We’re willing to stroke a cheque for them, but when a contractor that’s done the work and has been talking to this government – and not only the Minister, the Premier, Members of the Cabinet all know the situation that’s going on here – we are not paying the bill.
The question is why, with all the extras that we’re adding on to it, why haven’t we paid Rowe’s for the stuff that they’ve already done on the bottom of this bridge, and now we’re adding stuff on the top? Thank you.
There’s not a whole bunch of reasons why we’re not paying. It’s documentation, it’s the agreement that we had between another government and ourselves. So I can only answer this in one way, that this money that we got from another government was not there to pay for this work. It was there to cover the deficiencies. We still had deficiencies on the bridge. We have approximately the same amount of money left in the fund that there are deficiencies on the bridge. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
