Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to start off by saying my reference earlier to the Deh Cho Bridge Project being a gong show is in no way meant to disparage the good work done by the Minister and his staff. I do appreciate that. It’s the project in general. I just wanted to state that for the record.
In my last question to the Minister I asked him what are the potential financial risks to the Government of the Northwest Territories via the Deh Cho Bridge Project. I would like the Minister to answer that question for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, there are a number of unknowns in this project, as we speak. The Bridge Corporation is negotiating with a contractor about price until sometime later on this month. It will continue to be ongoing until we have an agreement in place.
Of course, there may be termination fees that more than likely will come forward from the contractor that the Bridge Corporation couldn’t make a positive agreement with that we will probably have to deal with. There are still some outstanding claims that we don’t have the numbers on. Mr. Speaker, our goal is to include all of the issues that I mentioned as part of our final price. We are trying to keep that within our budget. However, that is going to remain an unknown until we have resolved some of these issues. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister: how are the Government of the Northwest Territories and its department working to mitigate the potential financial risk to the Government of the Northwest Territories in this project? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have taken more of a hands-on approach through our resources and have people involved with all the different activities that are taking place, all the different discussions and those negotiations. As we develop and move forward on settling and coming to a final price on this project, we incorporated some requirements that needed to be addressed, including rolling in the cost of some of the claims and including the termination fees as we move forward. We would like to have all the different loose ends tied up and be able to come forward with some confidence to the Members and say we have a price. We have a firm plan that we are going to have to conclude this project by November 2011. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time for question period has expired; however, I will allow the Member a supplementary question. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister what the contingency plans are should a contractor not be found or a contract not be negotiated by March 1st for the remainder of the work of the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we expect to have a contractor in place. There are a number of contractors that have come forward. There are some serious negotiations. We have some preliminary numbers that we are looking at for the Bridge Corporation and ourselves are looking at. We are quite confident that we are going to resolve that and have an agreement by some time later early in this new year. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, during these negotiations, is the GNWT at the table in a meaningful way on negotiating the second portion of this project? Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier in my response, we have inserted our staff and we are participating in all aspects of discussions on this project. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 10, written questions. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to go to item 7, recognition of visitors in the gallery, on the orders. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent granted.
