Page 19, Transportation, capital investment expenditures, airports, special warrants, $3.4 million. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have spoken at length about this and I will try to keep this short. I wonder how the government can spend in this special warrant, what amounts to $3.4 million. Cumulatively, over three years, it was $6.6 million without any public debate or stakeholder consultation taking place for this expenditure. It boggles my mind, Mr. Chairman, how this can happen. In a city the size of Yellowknife with our airport being the hub of the North -- sorry, Jane, Mrs. Groenewegen -- the airport serves a vital function here in Yellowknife. For the government not to consult with the city of Yellowknife, the stakeholders out there, the businesses, etcetera, it really boggles my mind how this could just take place and the government can spend this money.

I do realize the fact that they are up against some imposed CATSA regulations, that they have to put the bomb detection equipment at the Yellowknife Airport, but I don't understand how and why government can just spend $3.4 million or $6.6 million over three years without that debate taking place in public. Now we are left here at the 11th hour, Mr. Chairman, with this money already having been spent talking about a special warrant for $3.4 million. It just doesn't make sense. I would like to question the Minister how this can happen. It just seems to be a travesty, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that the process of negotiating with CATSA what their contribution would be and the time table took some time and in the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have any needs for special warrants. But by the time the agreement was reached between CATSA and this government in terms of what the structure of what their contribution would be, there was no choice but to go to special warrant for the amount of funding that you have in this supplementary appropriation right now.

It's worth noting that the balance of the expenditure will show up in the main estimate and be subject to the usual budgetary debate and process, but because of the timing and the requirement to get started on the project as quickly as was necessary right after the final deal was reached, it had to go in this way.

I understand that within a week of FMB being advised of these negotiations being concluded, that the standing committee was briefed and while that's no substitute for following the process that we would like to follow, in this situation there was no other opportunity to move the project forward in the speech in which it had to other than calling a special session. I don't know if that would have been acceptable either. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know if the Minister has this type of information available to him, but when was the Department of Transportation told by CATSA that they had to install this bomb detection equipment? Could I get that information, please? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have that information. The Minister may have that information. It's not a question of whether or not this was known for awhile, it was. But the negotiations on what portion CATSA would pay went right up until the committee was advised that this was going to be an urgent expenditure. So it wasn't a situation where there wasn't some knowledge about the project having to go ahead, but there wasn't a clear knowledge of what this government was going to have to pay. As I understand it, the department was negotiating to try to get an even larger portion paid for by CATSA. In terms of when we got the first notification, I don't know, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps we could see if Minister McLeod has that information available.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, I don't have the specific date, but I think it's around December 2003, that we got notification that there would be a requirement to put in a screening device for passengers and baggage. The date was set for January 1, 2006. Having said that, we had no information in terms of the scoping of the project, the costing of the project and who would be required to cover which portions until early this summer, Mr. Chairman, which didn't leave us a lot of time or much room other than to go forward with a special warrant. The timing, as I stated earlier, is January 1, 2006. It doesn't leave us a lot of room.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Dent, would you like to add anything?

No, thanks.

Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess the CATSA segment of the expenditure for the bomb detection equipment, that is one thing, Mr. Chairman. I think the public could accept the fact that that was going to happen and we would need to spend a little bit of money. In the grand scheme of things, what's happening at the Yellowknife airport, from the information that I have, is a full blown expansion, both to the apron, both to the terminal building itself and we are adding an annex. We have seen them at the Edmonton International Airport. They are ATCO trailers. They are just an add-on, Mr. Chairman. Again, I will get back to the process here. There was no consultation with stakeholders at the airport. There was no consultation with the city of Yellowknife and there was no consultation with the Members of this House. Mr. Chairman, I find that completely unacceptable.

I don't know how else to say it, but it shouldn't have happened this way. You can wrap it all you want in the CATSA argument and the fact that the bomb detection equipment had to go in, but the stakeholders, the city of

Yellowknife and the residents of the Northwest Territories deserve better than what's happening here and the fact that we are going to try to recoup the cost over the next few years out of airport user fees is quite alarming, Mr. Chairman. I don't know exactly how it's going to work with the money in user-fees coming back to the government. Is it going to go back into the general revenue into the black hole or how is that money going to be applied, Mr. Chairman? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess to the last point first, since the money to pay for the project is coming out of general revenues, any receipts would go back into general revenues, as they should.

One of the terms and conditions of CATSA providing a contribution is that the improvements have to have a life of 10 to 15 years. Actually, CATSA says it has to have a life of 10 years. The department has projected the changes to the passenger terminal building will likely meet the needs of the travelling public for the next 10 to 15 years. So they feel they are safe on the CATSA side and are demonstrating that the building will be successful in providing the screening equipment for a life of at least 10 years, perhaps longer.

In terms of the process for recovering the funds, the department hasn't yet proposed the final solution. It is a process where they are examining what should take place and there are a few options that I believe the Minister still has under active consideration. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few more things I would like to bring up. One of the options that has been discussed was an airport improvement fee. I don't know how we sell that to the public based on the fact that some of these improvements to the air terminal building in Yellowknife might only be around for another 10 years. I don't know how that would work charging the travelling public an airport improvement fee for a facility that, for all intents and purposes, isn't going to be there after 10 years. That doesn't make a lot of sense, Mr. Chairman, and I don't think the public would swallow that.

The other thing I wanted to mention as well is most of the Members of this House and the public are well aware of the government's budgeting practices when it comes to capital projects, Mr. Chairman. I'm just wondering what safeguards we are taking and what safeguards are in place to ensure that this project doesn't cost us...It's $6.6 million right now, Mr. Chairman, but that's over three years. This project could come back costing the Government of the Northwest Territories $15 million or $16 million, and that's my fear, Mr. Chairman, that we don't know all the numbers and it's going to be a free-for-all here for the next three years. Then we'll have a terminal building that has a life expectancy of another 10 years. It just doesn't seem to me to be a good expenditure of money if indeed the terminal building is going to be moved 10 years from now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don't know for sure that the terminal building is going to be moved in 10 years. It may be in place for 20 years; the traffic is really the issue. The proposed renovations to the building we'll make will last for at least 10 to 15 years. It could be 20 or 25 years. There's no guarantee that there's going to be a new terminal building required in that space of time.

On the issue of cost overruns, the department, I understand, has briefed Members on what they're going to do to try and make sure that the project comes in on budget, and there are a number of steps that they have outlined by setting up sub-projects, for instance, and setting up maximum budget limits for each part of it, using the design/build process and following up with RFP documents that will outline the scope of work.

So I think the department is aware of the concern. Government is also, by and large, concerned with the cost of the projects and cost overruns. So it's something that we will all have to keep an eye on as it's progressing. But as I said, Members will have an opportunity during the regular budget session to deal with the majority of this money. What we're seeing in this process today was what was needed to be spent urgently this year in order to get the project started, after we had come to a conclusion with CATSA on what they would pay for. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Dent have covered some of the ground on this project. I should state from the outset that I, too, have some big concerns about this. On one hand, I appreciate the need to be part of a secure and responsible screening and security network of Canada, and the government and the travelling public in the Northwest Territories should accept some of the inconvenience and the cost of doing so. However, the scope of this project and the urgency in which it is being implemented speaks to some shortcomings in our system. I'd like to start with just getting a confirmation, Mr. Chairman, that the whole of the project as it is scoped out now has a total value of $14.6 million and that's made up of $4.6 million that CATSA will inject; $3.4 million that has already been spent; and $6.6 million that we're anticipating will come from the travelling public. So is it a $14.6 million overall project? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.