To the point of order, the honourable Member for Kam Lake.

Mr. Speaker. I want to weigh in on this point of order. I believe Mrs. Groenewegen does have a point of order. When the Premier can stand in this House and say that the banks are solely responsible for that $160 million, it’s not true. It’s not true, Mr. Speaker.

I believe the Government of the Northwest Territories is indemnifying….

Interjection.

Mr. Roland, you’re rising on a point of order? What is it?

Mr. Speaker, under 23(j), once again, I’ve been accused of uttering a falsehood. The Member said that the banks are solely responsible. You can look at Hansard. I’ve not said that. So my point of order is that the

Member is, again, accusing me of lying to this Assembly. In fact, lying to this Assembly is as good as putting my head on a platter.

Mr. Speaker, I want Members to be aware of the insinuations being made here. In fact, adding wording that has not been said and I have not said…. I’m speaking to this piece. Thank you.

We have two points of order on the floor now. I am going to allow debate and conclude debate on the original point of order. To the original point of order, Mr. Ramsay.

I thought I heard what I heard. Again, I’ll have to read Hansard again tomorrow when it comes out to see exactly what it was the Premier had said.

I was watching earlier when the Premier mentioned that…. You know, this might not have been caught in Hansard, but he said that I was misleading the House because he pointed at me and said I was responsible for the $242 million figure.

Interjection.

Yeah, and I’ll throw that out. Do you know where I got that number of $242 million? I’ll tell you where I got that. I got it from research.

Interjection.

I did the math. It adds up to $242 million. It’s $4.5 million a year indexed over 35

years. It comes out to an investment of

$242 million. That’s the real math. That’s the real math, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection.

I think we’ve had enough debate on the original point of order.

There’s another point of order on the floor, which I will allow a little bit of debate on. To the second point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to the issue of the point of order. We’re not arguing now, at this point, about the bridge. We’re arguing about what’s happened in this House in terms of twice now, the Premier has been accused of uttering falsehoods or lying.

Our rules are very clear. Clause 23: “In debate, a Member will be called to order by the Speaker if the Member…charges another Member with uttering a deliberate falsehood.”

It has happened twice, Mr. Speaker. That is the issue. What is acceptable? That is what the ruling has to be. I think we should focus on that issue. We’re not here to debate the bridge now. We’re debating whether it’s acceptable to stand in this

House and accuse the Premier twice of lying. That’s the issue that the Speaker has to rule on.

To Mr.

Roland’s point of order,

Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Speaker, the Members on the opposite side are putting words…. They are adding words. They are embellishing this. They are using things like “head on a platter,” “lying.” I never said lying.

I stood on a point of order to the fact that the Premier was offering…. He was misleading the House with the information he was giving. So if they want to describe that in whatever way they want to, that is what I said. And that is what I will set out to prove.

I am going to…. I don’t recall the exact words that were used, so I am going to take this under advisement, and I will come back on both points of order. I will come back to rule at a later date on both points of order.

I’ll ask some questions of the Minister of Transportation, given the sensitivity on this question of the Deh Cho Bridge.

I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation: how much money has the Department of Transportation spent in terms of contractors and consultants on the Deh Cho Bridge project over the last five years?

Mr.

Speaker, I would

have to check with my department for the exact details in terms of the contribution of the department, as has been asked by the Member on this specific topic here.

Mr.

Speaker, I can advise the

Minister that it is well over a million dollars that we have spent on consultants and contractors to work on the file of the Deh Cho Bridge project.

I am wondering if the Minister can supply the House with the reason why the Government of the Northwest Territories would bear the full cost of consultants and contractors looking at the Deh Cho Bridge project when the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation should be responsible for that level of work.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, I’ll have to look at this and go back to my department to see what other departments were involved, where the work was done, and get back to

the Member. I would be happy to sit down with the Member and go through with a fine-toothed comb in terms of the numbers.

Mr.

Speaker, one question that

hasn’t been answered in all of this is how much staff time the Department of Transportation has put into the Deh Cho Bridge project at the expense of other projects around the Territory.

I’d like to ask the Minister to commit to getting this House a detailed analysis of how much staff time has been spent on the Deh Cho Bridge project.

Mr. Speaker, I will get that detail and bring it back to the House.

Before I go on to the next Member, the original line of questioning was with Mr. Bromley, who had two supplementary questions left. Do you have further supplementaries, Mr. Bromley?

No further supplementaries.

Thank you, Mr.

Bromley. The

honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Speaker, as the Minister charged with the WCB by the Premier, I was aware of the circumstances surrounding the appointment process that the Member for Mackenzie Delta refers to.

Late in the 15th Assembly, the process was

initiated. I know, from being at the table, there were significant concerns by the Regular Members that the government in the dying days would make an appointment of this nature without allowing sufficient input from the Regular Members’ side. There was a request to government to delay the appointment of the chair. The government of the day agreed to do that.

There were a number of applicants, as the Member indicated. But as Minister, I came in with new legislation and a relatively new president. I made the decision that it would be in the best interests of the Workers’ Compensation Board and this government and, recognizing the strong support that the chair had among the Regular Members, that it would be best to reappoint Mr. Rodgers, which I did. His term will comply with the six years he is entitled to sit under the current legislation.