Mr. Speaker, as I tried to enjoy myself at home this weekend in Hay River, I couldn’t mistake the feelings of disappointment and frustration and unrest over the course that our government has charted for us in relation to the Deh Cho Bridge project. I had many people come up to me and remind me about the Deh Cho Bridge project, because everyone who came up had concerns as well.
I’m disappointed in the leadership, who are prepared to sacrifice transparency and accountability and the right of the people to know. I’m frustrated because, in the absence of clear and full communication on this project, some people are willing to throw up their hands and say it’s too late, it’s too complicated, and it would cost too much to reconsider.
The editorial in today’s paper is right in pointing out that people don’t know if they should be for the bridge or not, because it’s hard to understand the business case, the liability or the benefits.
To me, it’s like someone decided they’re going to build this bridge at any cost. We keep being told that the price has nowhere to go but up if we wait. I think we just saw an unprecedented inflation of construction costs in the past seven years while this bridge was being considered. I’m not an economist, Mr.
Speaker, but certainly, if you look to our
neighbours to the south — you hear all the news coming out of the U.S. — I would say perhaps that with this run on development, there’s a window ahead for a cooling-off period.
I know that allowing ourselves to lower the bar of what is an acceptable standard of accountability is wrong. It’s demoralizing, because we came here to do a job with good intentions of upholding what we believe in. I’m not prepared to let that go. Mr. Speaker, I can’t do that, because this bridge project process stinks.
People now hide behind the technicality of what they legally can do as opposed to having the courage to rise to the challenge of doing what they should do. What they should do is admit that this government had no business entering into a 35-year financial commitment three days before a new government was elected. They had no business in putting through a piece of legislation which had been passed on the pretense of a $60 million project that has now risen to $150 million. They had no business committing this government to a $9 million loan guarantee which, at numerous times, they said would not increase. They had no business proceeding without government support.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
Unanimous consent granted.