Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am wondering about the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation expenditure. The amount under revised estimate for ’08-09, I assume that means given the adjacent blank column that that wasn’t a planned expenditure or revenue, whatever the case may be here, and that there is some dollars budgeted. I wonder if the Minister could explain this item to me and what is going on here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the amounts in the budget for ’08-09 are posted that way because of the timing and the approvals. Thank you.

That explains why it’s in that column. I appreciate that. My other question is what is going on with these dollars. Do we have some sort of agreement where the Deh Cho Corporation will provide us the resources so that we can critique their engineering work? Is that essentially what is happening here?

Was the word “design checks”? Oh, yes, okay. And they are funding us to do that work, if that’s correct. Thanks.

Thanks, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Neudorf.

Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Mr. Bromley.

Yeah, I think I understand that. I am just wondering, and I want confirmed, that the Bridge Corporation supplies the dollars to do that to GNWT. Is that correct?

Thanks. Kind of a pedantic exercise here, but I think I’ve got it. Do we also have costs ourselves for this work above and beyond this amount? Thank you.

Yes, thank you. That’s it for now, thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We are on page 11-41, which is an information…Mrs. Groenewegen.

Sorry, Mr. Chairman. Did anybody ask if there is any indication if the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation is coming back to this government for money any time soon?

Not yet. I will go to the Minister, Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, we do have a concession agreement for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation to build a bridge. They have been drawing down as the project proceeds.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I had heard that there were some contractors, rather small contractors, local contractors, that there maybe was an issue with the cash flow on the project and some people who weren’t getting paid. I was just wondering if any of that has been brought to Minister McLeod’s attention. He is the MLA for that area. I was wondering if there were any financial problems being encountered with the

drawdown and disbursement of funds to subcontractors. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, this is really not an issue for us to intervene on. It has been raised by some of the contractors that the payment to them was not as quick as they would like. There has also been concern that our approval process is very rigid in terms of having all the required approvals. This is a project that falls under the Canadian Bridge Code and everything has to be approved for quality assurance and stamped and signed off. It can be fairly lengthy in some cases. I am not aware of any subcontractors that have not been paid. It is an issue we have raised with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and their subs. So as we did a review of the work done, the issues over this past year, and this is something we have asked them to look at improving. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, building a bridge, I imagine there are some pretty stringent issues of code and regulation and so on. I am certainly glad to hear the Minister say that our government wouldn’t consider circumventing any of those on any discretionary basis. So I suppose that is a good thing. I had just wondered, from the rumours I heard, if there was any issues of cost overruns or financial difficulties that might necessarily involve this government at some point in time. That was mainly what I was getting at. Thank you.

Thanks, Mrs. Groenewegen. I didn’t hear a question. We are on page 11-41, information time, work performed on behalf of others continued, $1.605 million.

Agreed? Next page…Actually, we are done the detail. We will go back to page 11-7, which is the summary page. Department of Transportation, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $97.060 million. Agreed?