Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm feeling pretty good considering I got some answers to the changes to BIP. Maybe I can get a number now, Mr. Speaker, a number that will save me speaking for quite length of time at third reading as I vote against the capital budget, a number I've been asking for for years, Mr. Speaker, and is can the Minister of Finance give us a cost estimate of what we think the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project will cost. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I think I have said before, we do have a final business case. The final business case does go to our steering committee first. This is the Indigenous government partners who are members of that watershed of the Taltson region who are still choosing to participate in the steering committee process. Mr. Speaker, so that work has been done. It is a lengthy, complex, and detailed. When while we may be able to share documents like that through the confidential processes of the House, I will not be in a position to put those numbers out forward on the floor of the House. But obviously being able to share those kind of information and details should allow Members to ask questions in an informed manner and to consider the issue in an informed manner without me having to necessarily speak to a number that, quite frankly, is a number that is a point in time on a very large project. So thank you, Mr. Speaker
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think there's some argument not to share the entire business case. I think there is a zero argument not to give an updated cost estimate. What's going to happen is we're going to have an election and everyone's going to say should we build the $1 billion Taltson Dam. And they say $1 billion because we released the business case in 2014, and that was the cost then. And, Mr. Speaker, it is a lot more than a billion dollars. So when we go into a democratic election, I would just like people to say the correct number. I understand there's this confidentiality around the business case and who may be buying power and those negotiations, but can we update that number.
So can the Minister give me a date at which the government will feel comfortable giving us an updated cost estimate on the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Infrastructure and I sit on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories on the steering committee, but we are, really, Members of that steering committee. We don't we're not leaders. We're not the sole proprietors of this project. We are part of that committee. So I can't, and I won't, give a date without consulting.
What I will do, Mr. Speaker, is direct our departments to ask the steering committee members with which we participate whether or not we are in a position to share a number. But if not, Mr. Speaker, at the very least, whether we can share some update as to the scale or magnitude of the project. I can say there's still at least one fairly critical decision that needs to be made before we can determine the final number. And there's sort of an A choice choice A or choice B. So it's going to be difficult to say. I do think it is possible in the course of an election to speak to whether or not we are investing in a billion or more than a billion-dollar mega project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
You know, I well, I think it would be inappropriate to say during an election that we're investing in a billion-dollar project, Mr. Speaker, because it's going to be a lot more than that. And I'm very confident that the government's number is already outdated and underestimated based on construction inflation costs. So I guess I'll try one last time. Can I get an over/under on $3 billion, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I do I guess maybe this is where we will disagree. So there was at one time an estimate of a billion dollars. There's been inflation. There's been the passage of time. There's costs of fuel. So it is pretty easy to see that we are looking into the stage of being well past the billion-dollar mark. And as I've said, there's still one critical business decision to be made by potential steering committee meeting group as to the routing, and that will impact the costs. So I'm not in a position to say on my own which of those two choices it will be. The steering committee needs to make that choice before the number can be finalized. As I've said, as far as giving a sense of what those two numbers estimated as of now are, I will commit to going back to the steering committee, asking if we want to put that out. But I do think that the members of the public in the territorial election should be talking about for the future of energy. They should be talking about if we want to invest in a billion dollar or more billions of dollars scale hydro project or if we want to be looking for other options, and what those options are and what the megawatts are, and what our megawatt needs are.
Mr. Speaker, I didn't put him up to it, but I'm talking about the Commissioner's address later so I'm going to stop now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
