Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. Mr. Speaker, there already is rumour and speculation out in the public about the status of the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Tuesday night MLAs received an update on the project. This is Thursday. The update that we received was substantial news, shall we say. This is Thursday and I believe the public needs to be aware of what is happening with this project, because, as I said in my Member’s statement, it could have very far-reaching effects for the operations of this government.
Mr. Speaker, this is a public government and I would like to ask questions about next steps and what the plan of the government is. I would like to ask the Minister, when will he issue a press release. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is right, we did a confidential briefing to the Members of this House as to an update and developments in recent days of the Deh Cho Bridge and we plan to have a public release tomorrow sometime. Thank you.
I’d like to try to honour the commitments that we make as committee members when we receive briefings from Ministers not to divulge the contents or detail of those briefings when it is provided on a confidential basis, which this was. However, tomorrow is the last day of sitting in this week and I have made it clear that I would like to… I don’t see any reason not to make this public unless the Minister can explain some reason to us why he can’t do that. But I would like to speak to this tomorrow in the House. It’s Friday and it’s an early sitting day, and I would like the Minister’s press release to precede the discussion here in the House. Will the Minister agree to that? Thank you.
I recognize the Member is biting at the bit to talk about the bridge. It’s always been at the forefront of our discussions here in this House. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reasons we are still requiring some time before we have a discussion in this House. First of all, we are still talking with the contractors and negotiating, in fact, for a new contract, the new contractors that have come on stream. Of course, we are also looking at making changes and having discussions with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. We are also engaging with the lenders and all of these are very sensitive discussions and could have a bearing on some of the results at the end of the day. We haven’t concluded those discussions so that’s the reason we’re not issuing a press release at this time.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe that those discussions will be concluded before the time tomorrow, at some time tomorrow when the Minister has already committed to issue a press release. Even if the Minister can’t provide the specific details, I think there are some substantive pieces of information that could be made known to the public. I would like to ask the Minister again, would he release that, in as much detail as he is able to release it, before the House sits tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’ll release the information that’s available and that I can provide publicly. I have to reaffirm that we’re in negotiations and discussions are very sensitive with the Bridge Corporation, with the lenders, with the contractor. In fact, with the information we provided in the supp, it all, at this point, should be kept confidential, but the Member is wanting a statement in public and I committed to do that and I’ll do that tomorrow. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, because this information will necessarily result in having to strike a plan for where we go from here and next steps, and there will be other subsequent decisions that will have to be made, I would like to ask the Minister if he can assure us here today that no substantive agreements will be entered into on behalf of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation or this government that would not be reversible prior to this being able to be discussed in public. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m not too sure what the Member is referring to, but we don’t plan to have any signed deals overnight. We would like to have a better plan that we can present to the Members tomorrow or sometime next week, but that is something we’re still working on and we don’t plan to have any signed documents overnight. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
