Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some more questions following up on my Member’s statement today. The other mission in the contracts report over $5,000 is the contract between the Government of the Northwest Territories and Ruskin to build the Deh Cho Bridge, Mr. Speaker. It is not every day that the government signs a sole-source contract for over $92 million. I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation where that contract is and how come it is not in the registry. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The contract for Ruskin was signed with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in March of 2010 with the approval of the GNWT, of course, so it would not appear in the GNWT contracts report for the 2009-2010 year. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, didn’t the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation hand over control of the project prior to March of 2010? If so, why is the contract with Ruskin between the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and Ruskin and not the Government of the Northwest Territories and Ruskin? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT assumed the contract through and as part of the letter of agreement that was signed between the GNWT and Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in 2010-11 fiscal year, so it will now start to show up in our books once we do the appropriate changes. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to certainly take a longer look at the timeline and how this all happened, but that is pretty alarming if the contract is between Ruskin and the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and not the government. We supposedly took over that. Mr. Speaker, have the assets of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation been transferred over to the Government of the Northwest Territories and when did that happen? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the assets, the contracts, all the dealings with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation were transferred to the Government of the Northwest Territories and they will now start to be part of our public accounts, that is including the long-term debt. It will also be included in our non-consolidated financial statements. There is going to be some requirements for some legislative changes to the act that will require us to now not put the revenues into a special fund, but will now go into general revenues of the government. So there are minor changes to that. That will be forthcoming as we move along here, but now, for the comfort of the Member, all assets, all components of the bridge project are now under the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the timing is pretty good. The Minister and his staff are going to be providing a briefing to Regular Members next week on the Deh Cho Bridge Project. I was wondering if the Minister could commit to have his department staff, when they come to the briefing next week, provide the committee with an overview of the contract itself, especially with an eye to eligible costs and where responsibility lies for eligible cost overruns on that project. Thank you.
Thank you. We’re always pleased to provide the Members of this House with information and updates on what is happening with the project. There’s a lot of interest, of course, as the project moves forward. We have committed to provide a briefing to the Members and we certainly will bring all the information we can. Of course, I indicated earlier that we will not be giving the Members a copy of the contract. That would be something that would require some approvals from other people that are involved in this project. But we will certainly give the dates. When this was transferred over I think we signed a letter of agreement and agreed to transfer this portion of it over in April and all of the dealings are no different than any other government project and the reporting will be done accordingly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
