Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will respect whatever that ruling is. I don’t suppose I can retract the number now. It’s already out there, but, Mr. Speaker, it has been very, very frustrating as a Member of this Assembly to try to get information about this project.
I just provided a quote from Hansard. When we got elected as the 16th Assembly, I came in here and I
asked specific question after specific question of the Premier about if any contracts, any agreements, any concession agreements, anything had been signed by this government and I was repeatedly told that nothing had been signed. Then I asked about the liability of this government and I was told we weren’t guaranteeing the big loan, as I just quoted from Hansard, Mr. Speaker.
So I just believe that the public has a right to know what we’re up against here. I mean, two weeks ago we heard that this project was on budget. Today the Minister, and I do thank him for being forthcoming with the press release, the press release says that in fact Cabinet’s going to be coming back to the Regular Members and asking our support for another $15 million for this bridge. I just want the public to know that we are in a very unenviable situation right now. It is not a nice feeling to be in a situation where we have a project that’s half built, that we asked questions about all along, that we had concerns about, that the information was not fulsome coming back to the Members on this side of the House. I do not think that is... I think that’s probably an understatement.
I will continue with my statement and hopefully nothing else in it will offend the Members in the House. I’m not going to be a part of... I want to be respectful of the committee process and the unique ability of the consensus government to share things, but I don’t want to be a part of covering up things from the public. Already some people in the public have said – We get criticized if we know things and don’t say them. They say, oh, you knew about that all along and you didn’t do anything? You didn’t say anything? And we get almost tarred with some kind of sense in the public that we were conspiring to cover something up. So I don’t know, I guess the line between respecting the committee process, but I did give the Minister notice yesterday I was going to talk about this.
Anyway, let me continue on with my text. Just in case, in the matter of the loan guarantee, anyone
thinks that the GNWT is in the driver’s seat on these fiscal forecast scenarios, in fact the lender is in the driver’s seat on this and has the ability to call the loan just because of almost, well, the reasons that we’ve talked about, the ones that are already on the table, the changes and the revisions to the design, the management, the cost. These are all substantive changes to this project. So we may think that we are, and we are trying to, and I’m coming to the fact of what the Minister is trying to do. In that instance we would still be on the hook for the entire loan thus soon putting us over the debt limit or thrusting us into the exercise of scrambling to see what we could sell, how we could cut our capital budget, or where else we could make cuts in order to get ourselves under that $500 million debt limit.
The other thing about these scenarios is that they do not account for anything unforeseen. We can make assumptions and we can say, well, if this happened or that happened, but we don’t have a comprehensive list of unforeseen things. So for our government to operate in a way that financially puts us that close to our borrowing limit of $500 million, well, I guess the public will have to decide if that is a good idea, because the impacts of this will be felt by everyone.
That is why, in the interest of public and transparent government, the people of the Northwest Territories have the right to fully be aware of how this could impact us all.
The Finance and Transportation Ministers along with their staff are trying to make the best of a very difficult situation that we find ourselves in. I believe they, like us, want to mitigate any negative impact as a result of this recent turn of events. But let’s not forget that at least three of them across the floor of the House were at the table when the agreement was signed that got us into the mess that we are in today.
To those who have raised concerns about this project at every juncture along the way and to those who were not around, and some on this side of the table, too. Okay, there’s some finger pointing going on here. To those poor folks who were not even around from the inception of this debacle, there has been a collective, sickening feeling as we have contemplated our options. I think that would characterize the last few days. So although we are grappling with potentially very bad news, I think that the people of the NWT have a right to know and hear and comment to us on the situation. We cannot sit here in silence while we know the behind-the-scenes truth of the potential magnitude of the challenge that could be before us.
The failure of our government to manage this scenario through to the best outcome possible would impact major projects in the future such as the Taltson hydro expansion, the Mackenzie Valley
Highway, and literally any other major project that the GNWT has the potential to be involved in. Transparency in public government is of the utmost importance. Trying to cover something like this from public scrutiny and input in spite of sensitive negotiations is not advisable. That’s why I’ve taken the opportunity today.
It would seem to me that under normal circumstances there would be some fallout for those who have propelled us into this mess. But in the interest of working together to stabilize the situation, that is probably a discussion better left to a future time.
On a personal note, I was speaking to my son Jeffery on the phone last night, who, as you know, has a very keen interest in politics. It was very stressful to get involved in this debate. I said that I could say nothing about it. Who could fault me and who could criticize me if I just sat on my hands today and said nothing? I think it’s very well known by people that I’m not planning to run again. I could say let the next government worry about it. I said, I don’t even know why I care so much. And he said, Mom, you care so much because this is not right. We’ve got ourselves into a situation that is not right for the people that we represent.
Sometimes leadership isn’t about doing what’s popular, but it is about doing what’s right. Your representatives, the MLAs of this Assembly, are about to be called upon to approve another $15 million for the Deh Cho Bridge and to try and manage our way through this difficult situation with our colleagues in the Cabinet. There is a right way to go and we would like to take that path.