Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, over the past few days, this government has been questioned on matters of the BIP policy and whether or not suspension for phase two of the North Slave Correctional Facility project is justified. Today I want to voice concern over this project also. However, my concerns are to highlight the issue of cost overruns on a project of this nature and how it affects communities outside of Yellowknife.
Mr. Speaker, the North Slave Correctional Facility was developed based on 1999 dollars. I ask, was this project intended to be completed in 1999? If the project was scheduled to be completed at a later date, why was this not a consideration?
I can fully understand the difficulty in projecting costs on any of these larger, government funded projects. However, when costs are at 28 percent, or in this case, a total of $9.9 million over budget, it becomes unacceptable. We have cause for concern.
In the last while, we have seen too many cost overruns on too many of our projects. For example, the Laing Building was $900,000 over project costs. The young offenders' facility in Inuvik was $830,000 over. I understand that the Aurora College building in Inuvik is also having difficulties and will be seeking additional dollars. Mr. Speaker, I am sure if I dug deeper, we would find more examples of this nature.
I have to wonder, Mr. Speaker, who do we have developing our budgets? Why is it whenever the government undertakes projects, we think we can do it cheaper than private industry? Are we that inexperienced? Is it because we have incompetent staff? Or is it because we are being taken for a ride by the northern contractors? In any event, it is evident that this government does not have the information or answers to these questions.
When we are forced to take dollars from one area to cover this government's error in costing, it means all the people in the Northwest Territories suffer. Mr. Speaker, we need to put an immediate stop to this bleeding of public dollars. We should be spending dollars on housing, on education, on health, on economic development. Instead of overspending on jails, we should be addressing the problems associated with why people are being...