Mr. Speaker, before I get into the financial arrangements made by the lenders and the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, with input from quite a number of sources, let’s be clear. There was a project put in place by a previous government that had a concession agreement that flowed into this government. The Deh Cho Bridge Act was put in place even prior to that. Members may throw about the words “messed up” and so on. The simple fact is that we have had to step in because of contractor issues, because of capacity issues of this project.
Now, if all of the pieces fell together as they were initially identified, we would have Members standing up when the ribbon cutting ceremony happened, talking about the best thing the Government of the Northwest Territories ever got into. Unfortunately, we didn’t get there. We as the Government of the Northwest Territories have had to now step in, as this process clearly identifies, of having to assume that debt. By assuming the debt and by looking at what we have to face as the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Member is correct; there are future, in a sense, implications about available borrowing room. Every government has to weigh that if they will borrow for projects. Our Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger, laid out in his budget process the fiscal strategy of going back to a more typical capital program with the Government of the Northwest Territories and that would be $75 million on an annual basis.
So as we go forward on this project we do have to look at the impacts of such an agreement, what they mean to us going forward, what it means in this environment, ensuring that we do not burden the future governments with the decisions we have.
As we’ve had to step into this project, the financing agreement that’s been put in place by the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation with the lenders has a 35-year payment plan to it, if that’s the proper terminology to use. That plan can be paid out depending on, for example, the real bond market that’s out there and how much of a penalty that’s potentially put on to that payout. There are going to have to be some
things that we’ll have to look at. Right now we would be assuming or making huge assumptions as to what future bonds may be.