Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to say I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. I think all things being what they are, this has definitely been a pretty tough learning curve on how we handle P3s in the Northwest Territories. We, if anything, have had a very poor record on P3s. If anything, we should have probably done more due diligence on who our partners were and if they have the capacity to do the job. Also having a company heading your construction going bankrupt halfway through the project didn’t help either. I think we have to be realistic here that we hopefully will avoid these implications happening in the future. I think sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes and try to move forward knowing you have learned the hard way.

I think by learning the hard way I do have concerns coming from constituents where we are asking for capital projects, whether it’s the Aklavik road project to its gravel source and hoping we would be treated just like Tuktoyaktuk and their gravel source. For some reason we just didn’t happen to be on top of the list. We ended up at the bottom of the list. Now we’re being told to put an application in to the federal government. Well, dollars were spent from this government for that project. The same thing with regard to preliminary work on the Peel River Bridge. That stuff was done between myself and other parties. I think this government has to take those issues seriously.

We realize we spent a lot of money on capital infrastructure in the last number of years. If you look geographically at where those capital expenditures are and wonder why the small communities are having infrastructure challenges, we’re being told sorry, we can’t help you there. Sorry, we don’t have money for this. Sorry, we don’t have money for that. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a trail to a gravel source or a simple trail in the communities, we’re limited for that. Yet we still have health issues in the communities whether it’s about dust control, et cetera. For some reason this government does not seem to have the willingness to assist in those areas. When it comes to going into crisis mode we manage to find $15 million

simply by coming forward with a supp to say sorry, it’s a goodwill gesture and it will get us over the hurdle and we’ll get money back to move on the project. Then we find out coming here today that was not the case.

I think that as a government we are responsible for ensuring the public purse. I still don’t feel comfortable with the comments in the Premier’s statement about Mr. Flaherty going to Cabinet to get some sort of Cabinet approval for us to be able to do this. When is this going to Cabinet? When are we going to get something in writing? Will they have to make amendments to speak to our borrowing limit through legislative changes? I don’t feel comfortable simply saying that Mr. Flaherty is a nice guy. If Mr. Flaherty was such a nice guy he would have helped us with the investment in the pipeline. He would have helped us with the investment in the Mackenzie Highway. Yet the Conservative government has not done anything by way of major investment in the Northwest Territories to allow those capital projects to be funded by federal investment dollars. Yet the Aboriginal Pipeline Group and the Mackenzie Valley organizations are trying to work with them to get this stuff going. I think it’s something we have to be aware of, knowing that we don’t have control of the federal decision. It’s a Cabinet decision that has to be made in the federal government. Until that decision is made I cannot fully support this initiative going forward until I know for a fact that there was a federal Cabinet meeting where they made the decision to increase our borrowing limit to $665 million. I know you’re saying that, but for me saying it is one thing and going to the federal Cabinet table and making that federal decision is something that I’d like to see in writing from the federal Minister that the Cabinet decision was made.

I think it’s important that we as legislators realize that whatever way we make the decision we would have had to pay for this capital investment over 35 years. Now it seems like we’re going to have to put it on our books sooner than we thought. Because of that now we’re still going to have to make those payments over 35 years but under a different financial formula than we expected.

I think that we as a government have to realize that we have to take advantage of this opportunity. I know that through the capacity that this government has and with the Department of Transportation taking over this responsibility and having key people in key positions to oversee and manage the project whether it’s the building and construction of bridges or developing the engineering capacity that we’re hoping to keep in house after we conclude this project and also be able to move on to other projects that I’ve touched on such as the Peel River Bridge, the Bear River Bridge, the bridge across the Liard and replace the ferries going forward. I think we also have to realize that there are other big

projects on the horizon such as the pipeline or the Mackenzie Highway or connecting our communities to the Government of the Northwest Territories public infrastructure. As we can see from global warming and whatnot, we are going to have to make that decision to connect communities to public highways over land. We cannot depend on the winter resupply system as we’ve learned over the years. It’s going to get worse. It’s not going to get better.

I know that there is nothing we can do now. We’re in a bad situation. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. I think because of that we have no other choice but to agree to this supp going forward with some guarantees from the federal government in writing that the federal Cabinet has made the decision to increase our borrowing limit to allow us to work this through our debt without an implication on future governments going forward.

Someone who has been here since the 13th Assembly, we walked into a $110 million deficit that we had to crawl out of. We had to sell government assets, amalgamate departments, lay people off. That wasn’t easy. If we end up finding out that Cabinet for one reason or another has not agreed fully on this and they say no to Mr. Flaherty, then what? That’s the question I have and I’d like an answer to that one.

For me I certainly don’t feel comfortable going forward. What happens to that debt after five years? If they give us a five-year window, where does this fit in our books after five years? How does this move forward with future debt we will be assuming for other public infrastructure such as the replacement of Snare Hydro or replacement of major capital projects such as the Power Corporation increasing its debt?

The other issue I have is in regard to the Housing Corporation debt and what happens when we have to replace the $35 million supp funding for the housing rent supp? There are numbers out there that we still have to be aware of. I realize going forward, from what we’ve seen, that we haven’t seen much growth. If anything, our population numbers are dropping. Our corporate taxes are not what we were hoping they would be. I think for myself we have to get that guaranteed assurance from the federal government. Hopefully we’ll get that sometime this week or at least some assurance that Cabinet has dealt with it and made a decision.

I will leave it at that and look forward to the responses from the Minister.