Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments I have to make today, Mr. Chairman, relate to the process by which the transportation strategy was made and the considerable amount of pain that the Minister went to, to get his staff to describe to us exactly what this process was.
There was a detailed explanation of the criteria used and Members were convinced that the criteria used was objective, laid down to guide the department in how it goes about its business. And it was no different then my recollection of the criteria that are used for the building of all infrastructure. For example, I know that when a decision is made to build something, or to replace something, they look at things like safety issues. This building is no longer safe, so we have to fix it up or replace it. It may be old, no longer designed to serve the purpose that it was originally built to serve.
In the case of the road from Providence to Yellowknife, that road was built in the 1950s, the beginnings of it. The intention at that time was it would be a road -- a rough track, so that transportation would be better than it existed on the lake -- especially to serve the mining community, where lots of heavy equipment would be coming across the road. There was no feeling at that time that this road would have a tremendous amount of wheeled traffic, bringing in tourists from all over North America. Whenever you decide you are going to do something, you have to use some criteria. And, we were given a special briefing -- all Members -- to explain why it is that priorities had been established the way they were. I was very interested to see if there was anything there that I found difficult to accept and I couldn't. There was every attempt to find out if there was something there that wasn't just right -- wasn't correct if you like -- I listened to the whole briefing and I found nothing there that was out of line with the established policies of the government, in the way they go about deciding what infrastructure to build. For that reason, I find it difficult to understand why once more, after already having gone through this process several times, we have to have one more review to make sure that the government's got it right. That's the only concern I have. Why is it we continue to ask people to look at something again, if we've already been told the reasons why something is being done?
It would be very easy for the Ministers to say, sure, I'll look at it again but what new can I do, what else can I do? What other information am I going to get? I already have all the information. So, unless you want to change the whole system of deciding how you do things, and what criteria you use, then of course you have to wait for a couple of years for that, to develop a new system of doing things. I'm convinced that what has been done was done on the basis of objective criteria so that whatever money we put into transportation infrastructure would be done in a fair, just, and equitable fashion. So, I won't be speaking any further. I won't be voting on the motion, but those are my comments.