Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just have a few more questions today for the Minister of Transportation getting back to the Auditor General’s report. Honestly, this bridge is being built in a very challenging environment across the Mackenzie River, one of the great rivers of the world, and in a very remote location of the Northwest Territories. Construction costs, Mr. Speaker, would seem to me to be a risk that would be evident from day one. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation how the Department of Transportation is managing the risks on construction costs on that project going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve put together a team of experts from across the country, I should say across the world, that are very experienced, probably the best in their field and they’ve put together a risk matrix that identifies all the potential challenges that are out there. Anything that may happen, they develop an action plan that would require a response and this is the area that the Auditor General has flagged as having some concern.
Mr. Speaker, we should, I guess, put into perspective first of all what risk means to the Auditor General and everybody else, the ordinary person on the street. The Auditor General assumes risk to mean potentially delaying a project by a month. I would assume when people hear the word “risk” -- and I’ve had a few comments -- it’s an issue with the construction and then maybe the bridge will fall down. That’s not the case, Mr. Speaker. We have a team that’s put together a very good plan. We’ve identified all the risks that could be attached to this project. There are certain areas that have some risk having been identified that are considered low. I mean, we’re not going to put a risk to identify an action plan if a buffalo walks into a construction yard. Those types of things are not realistic. I think we have a very good team, a very good plan and a very good response program. Thank you.
Thank you and I thank the Minister for that. It would be easy to identify risks. Risks are easily identifiable and in the Auditor General’s report she calls the department’s risk matrix weak. It’s how you manage those risks, Mr. Speaker, and that’s what I want to ask the Minister about. The Department of Transportation seems to figure that by including a delivery date in the contract, that that transfers that risk to the general contractor. The Auditor General found no information on this transfer in the risk matrix, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister how he accounts for that omission. Thank you.
The Auditor General identified the risk matrix as being weak. It didn’t cover some areas that we consider as low. There’s also been concern from the Auditor General that the wording itself was too general when we used the best efforts or best practices and those types of terms, she figured that we should have it word-specific to an actual response, Mr. Speaker.
We have a contract, we have a plan to deal with any issues that come forward and there may be issues that are unforeseen, but for the most part, Mr. Speaker, we’ve engaged risk management experts to put this plan together, they’re the best in the country, best in the world and they’ve put together... I’ve put together a very efficient project management team. We have engaged more project managers than we had historically. We require industry best practices for quality control, quality assurance and we now do and have spent a lot of energy identifying any potential risks and incorporated tracking mitigation measures to ensure that it's followed. So, Mr. Speaker, we’ve done everything we can possibly. I’m not sure what more we can do. Maybe there could be some suggestions from the Member that has taken the Auditor General’s recommendations and raised the concern. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The time for question period has expired. I’ll allow the Member a short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d have to wonder whether the team that the Minister speaks of was hired before the audit was conducted or they’ve recently been hired to address the weaknesses that the Auditor General identifies in her report. Mr. Speaker, obviously one of the most important risks going forward is the construction costs on this and in that matrix it does not address the risk the department might face should the bridge be completed late, and we’ve talked numerous times about this. I’d like to ask the Minister specifically about that question. How is the department going to handle that project should the costs come in over what they’re scheduled to be? Thank you.
Thank you. I’m glad the Member pointed out risks. Mr. Speaker, this is the risk of asking for an Auditor General operational audit a few days after we assume the project completely in the responsibility of the government. The Auditor General did a lot of this work as we were putting our team together, as we were putting our plans together, and this document reflects that, Mr. Speaker. It’s unfortunate. Our preference would have been to have the final audit at the end of the project. I stated many times before that it’s really stretched our resources. We’ve been audited for eight months out of the 12 months that we’ve had this project in our hands. However, we are managing and we are moving forward.
As to the question about who would pay for this project, Mr. Speaker, this is a government project. We’ve assumed full responsibility for this project and if there is a cost overrun, if we go into December or into January, for that matter, we would have to see if there are any dollars left in the construction budget. Failing that, we would have to look internally to see if there’s any slippage on any other projects, and worst-case scenario we would have to come back to this House through supp. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I could sum it up concisely, I just want to get a better idea on whose responsibility it is should the project go past November of 2011 and cost more. Is it the general contractor or is it the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, if there was any potential loss of revenue due to the contract going past the completion date, we would seek recovery on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr, McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to return to item number 6 on the orders of the day.
---Unanimous consent granted
The Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
