Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have some questions today for the Minister of Transportation and it gets back to my Member’s statement on the Deh Cho Bridge. I just want to start out by saying that I respect and I appreciate the work that both the Minister and his departmental staff are putting in on this project, but I’ve got to ask some fundamental questions here today, Mr. Speaker.
Much has been made about the departure of Atcon from the Deh Cho Bridge Project. The project was sold, like I said in my Member’s statement, to the public, to Members of this House and to the former Cabinet as a fixed price contract. That is just not factual today, Mr. Speaker. I would like the Minister to explain to the House today how this so-called fixed price contract turned into such a gong show, Mr. Speaker, and now we are looking for a new contractor to finish the second half of that bridge. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the gong show the Member speaks of is only in some people’s eyes. I am very interested to see why he’s concerned about my being positive on this project would be a concern.
Mr. Speaker, this project was brought forward with a design in place with a caveat that further testing had to be done. That was done and approved. There needed to be some changes. The designer of the original bridge was no longer in place and a new team came into place and indicated that there could be some changes made that would result in savings and we proceeded on that basis. Things have gone well and we now have a design in place and we’ll be moving forward.
I’d like to point out to the Member, Mr. Speaker, that any project, any contracts we have in place is not set in stone and they can be opened up and many have been even though they are considered to be ironclad. In this case, we had a caveat that allowed us to do so. Thank you.
That begs the question why anybody would sign a concession agreement with a partner without a design. I am just wondering whose responsibility was that. Why was a concession agreement signed with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation without a design in place, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Maybe the Member didn’t hear what I said. I did indicate that we did have an approved design in place that required further testing. So we did have a design at the time. Thank you.
I’d like to ask the Minister, and I think the question that everybody out there has is what will this bridge ultimately cost to have constructed, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
We feel that the bridge will be constructed with the price that we had indicated earlier and we are trying to stay on budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what are the outstanding financial risks to the Government of the Northwest Territories and what is it going to cost the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation to get out of its contractual obligations with Atcon? Thank you.
The Member knows full well that we don’t have that information at this time. We would expect the cost, any kind of termination fees would include work that was done up to this date on this portion and this phase of the contract and some profit margins also. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
