Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in terms of the frustration in increasing costs, I think it has been noted, but it is worth repeating, but the project is 50 percent done, so we are comfortable with that. The new design is compete and approved
so there won’t be significant changes going forward. We do have a contractor in place and the contract for that work has been initialled. We just initialled this last Friday so we have got that signed up, and we have got a new and improved project management in place, so we think that we have much more oversight on the project that we will be able to control and ensure that we don’t get into the same type of situation that we have right now.
In terms of the tolls and paying for costs and potentially adjusting it for tolls, we have always, in the benefit costs, the economic analysis that we did, we wanted to keep the toll so that the actual cost of the toll was slightly less than the benefits that would be incurred by the public, by consumers as a result of that toll. So we had provided that information previously to the Members. The benefits of the Deh Cho Bridge were about $7 a tonne. Our toll was set at about $6 per tonne, so slightly less than. Of course the government had to make up the difference to have the project go ahead. The previous government agreed to an additional subsidy of $2 million to address the higher costs and we are here requesting another $15 million again to address some of the cost increases.
I would note that that $15 million is being funded as per the Concession Agreement, so the Concession Agreement speaks to the Government of the Northwest Territories providing upfront the additional costs that were required for the project, but we would get paid back over the life of the project from the revenues for the project. Thank you.