Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a response to the Premier’s Sessional Statement, which encompasses a broad variety of topics. So I guess people have been pretty much talking about anything that’s a priority to them.
Of course, right now, to me a priority is the issue of our fiscal situation: fiscal responsibility, how we as a government spend our money, how we engage in a consensus government — all Members of this House — in decisions that are made and dialogue that takes place that leads to those decisions.
The Premier is the Finance Minister. The Premier has laid out his vision of a government that’s fiscally responsible and lives within its means and does not have expenditures which exceed the money that we have. That is, I guess, a trademark that we have learned to expect and appreciate about our Finance Minister/Premier from our previous experiences in the government.
So I guess when we look at the aspirations of the 16th Assembly and the things that we would like to
see focused attention to in our Territory, it is reasonable to expect that we would also have to take a look at areas where there may be opportunities for strategic reductions as well. I don’t think we can just call them strategic reinvestments; we need to look at strategic reductions. I’m sure Members have spoken about that exercise. I’m very glad to be a part of discussions about this, because I think we do have to be extremely sensitive. We don’t want to be making reductions where those reductions will ultimately hurt the agenda that we’re trying to advance as Members of this Legislative Assembly.
One of the areas that we have not had as much money in, in recent years, is of course, in the area
of capital — budgets for capital replacements, new infrastructure. There has been more demand than there has been money for capital projects, which brings me to the issue of the Deh Cho Bridge. I’m interested today to hear the Premier’s responses to some of the questions that were posed about the Deh Cho Bridge.
If you look at the total cost of $160 million, for sure some of that capital investment will be offset by the tolls that will be collected on the commercial traffic that will cross that bridge. That’s a good thing. Well, it doesn’t hurt me — I don’t live in Yellowknife, so it’s not something I’ll be necessarily contributing to. However, as a resident of the Northwest Territories, it is appearing like I will be contributing to the cost of the Deh Cho Bridge in a much more significant way than had ever been anticipated, I believe, in previous governments when the concept of the bridge came up.
So if you add up the $2 million contribution, the price of the ice-road, the price of the ferry operations, the price of the toll administration, now we’re up to about $4.5 million. And there is, as the Premier shared today, no cap on that combination of items being indexed over the next 35 years. So I would say we’re entering into this pretty much with a blank cheque, and we really don’t know what it’s going to cost.
If some other proposals for getting goods to areas such as the diamond mines ever materialized, which they could, the volume of traffic on the highway and utilizing the bridge could be significantly reduced, which could leave the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in a difficult position in terms of making their payments on this investment in our infrastructure.
The debt will be in their name, at which time I have to project that the government will have to step up and assume and take over the responsibility for that debt financing on that project, since it is a piece of infrastructure which is normally owned by a government. Given our limited ability to borrow and carry debt, our legislative limit of $500 million, it’s difficult for us to finance projects of this magnitude. So I suppose the government of the day saw this Public/Private Partnership as an alternative to the government actually going out and borrowing money or undertaking a project similar to the business case and the plan and the model that’s now being implemented with a private partner.
I guess when you consider that amount of government involvement which may come to pass, it then begs the question: with all the competing interest for capital, is there something else that could have been a worthy project that people in the Northwest Territories could support more than this — something more urgent, something with more
benefit, something with more ability to employ people?
You know, one of the dreams that has been out there for decades has been the idea of extending the all-weather road down the Mackenzie Valley. That is something that could have brought employment and economy to many regions of the Northwest Territories. Who’s to say that the Deh Cho Bridge was a higher priority? When we started off with a $60 million piece of infrastructure, it made sense. When it went to $160 million, I think it begged a debate and a question and a dialogue or consultation all over again to see if that is what we wanted to spend our limited capital money on.
I guess, Mr. Chairman, you could quote me today as predicting that this government will be substantively involved in this project in the next 35 years to come. I think the involvement in this project is going to impact on our ability as a government to procure and advance other capital projects. I think this is a project that is going to consume a great deal of this government’s money over the next years. As such, it should have been something that was more thoroughly thought out.
I guess it just should have been approached through a more transparent and accountable process. I think we came to be the sponsors of this capital project through means that were not in keeping with good principles of consensus government and public government. When a piece of legislation is passed that contemplates a $60 million self-financing project and goes to $160 million with not another opportunity to reaffirm the support for that — just pushing, pushing, pushing almost to point of bullying to get this thing going — it really raises a lot of flags and a lot of questions.
I for one, as Mr. Krutko says, am going to be very involved in ensuring that proper checks and balances are put in place that will never allow something like this to happen again. In fact, if there is a way yet to stop it through involving the Auditor General, through the review of the concession agreement that is taking place right now, as we speak…. Time is running out, but I will employ every opportunity available to bring attention to the inconsistencies, the discrepancies and the very inappropriate way in which this project came to be on our books.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.