Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I spoke about the P3 policy that government is working with the Priorities and Planning committee to develop. I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance, we had seen it I think it was last fall and we hadn’t had any more discussion on it. I’d just like to ask the Minister where the P3 policy is right now.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re still working on the document we’ve had. As the Member indicated, we visited committee and we presented the work that we’ve done. We presented the work that was coming out of Canada in terms of their thresholds and how they approached the issue.
As I recall, it was quite an extensive document and given the context of the Auditor General’s report on the Deh Cho Bridge Project, when establishing P3s that’s something that should be real and tangible. Does that document speak to that?
The Member has touched on a key point in terms of the risk and the tangible benefits. We do have an extensive list of feedback from the committee that we received in December and that work is still being reviewed in looking at how we can incorporate it into the policy going forward.
That’s something certainly this side of the House would like to support and engage once we come down to a good policy that will protect us in the future and give us positive benefits not only for ourselves but for all Northerners. I’d like to ask the Minister what the next stage is. I think our side of the House is waiting for government’s response on what the next steps are in developing our P3 policy.
In the next number of weeks we will conclude looking at what feedback we got from committee and we will look at how we can adjust the policy which we will then send back to committee for their review.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Working with the P3 policy I think the next step is to sit down with committee. I’d just like to ask the Minister, I don’t know how much detail is in there, but what would be the size of the projects that are actually listed in there by financial value? What is the minimum for a P3 project?
That’s going to be part of the challenge. As we look at, for example, the federal approach to P3s, they have a fairly high threshold of $50 million. We’ve heard the concerns from the committee that in the North that’s going to put most projects out of reach. That’s one of the areas where we have to come to a final agreement on.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
