Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First off, I do support the principle of the bridge project. I certainly believe strongly that this is the type of infrastructure that needs to be built in the Northwest Territories. I also believe strongly when I had asked last month about why haven’t we sought federal government support, why hasn’t the federal government come to the table to assist us with this project. I think that seems to be a significant gap in this process that has been happening.

Today I tabled an article from a magazine called Bridge Design and Engineering. It is a magazine from the UK. It defines itself as the definitive publication for bridge professionals worldwide and they do sort of an overview of the Deh Cho Bridge, oddly enough. It is an article called Remote Control, which I am still trying to figure out why they called the Deh Cho Bridge article a remote control. But what was interesting and stunning about this overview is it highlights a particular section of interest. It says, an independent review of the original superstructure which was done by TY Lin International identified that there were numerous deficiencies and felt that the bridge was deemed unbuildable.

Mr. Chairman, I think that really starts towards the beginning of the problem, which is ultimately the government in the 15th Assembly went forward,

signed a bridge agreement, as we have all heard. It was a fixed price, fixed contract and completed design and yet that seems to be where the real problem started. I am not talking about the decision to do the bridge or not. I mean, that is a different issue altogether. Ultimately, once we were albatrossed with the deal, there seems to be problems from the bridge outwards and they just haven’t stopped.

Mr. Chairman, my opening comments are more reflective as to what are we doing with respect to stuff like that. TY Lin International is a significant corporation that reviewed the bridge. It is an extremely strong statement to say that the original bridge was unbuildable. A company doesn’t make

that type of statement willy-nilly, if I may put it as simply as that.

I am kind of wondering if our government is pursuing the original bridge design or some of these costs. I think some of the costs have all been associated to the fact that the bridge was designed poorly and it was sold in a context that it was a complete design ready to go for a fixed price.

Mr. Chairman, at this point, that is really where my concern will start. Although I have a number of concerns as we go through this process, I am sure that they will all come to light through that.

I would like to hear more about how the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation will be involved and what role they will play. I would like to hear more from the Minister when we get into this concession agreement and how will it be inactive when it relates to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation.

One of the things I did was when I pulled the Deh Cho Bridge Act the other day, I was curious to find out if any of the regulations at this point have been drawn up. If they had been drawn up, I certainly would like to hear a little more about that.

Mr. Chairman, just for opening comments, I think my real concern will begin with the fact that an independent review had, I think, hit the nail right on the head, which is the fact that this government accepted a contract, signed a contract on good faith that the bridge was a complete bridge ready to go and we find out later it was not. We spent a lot of time, a lot of delays associated with money and a lot of frustration that was caused throughout this House.

I still believe in the bridge project in principle. I think that it will provide a significant legacy infrastructure for this Territory that I do believe needs to be built. I wonder if one of our fundamental problems have to do with the design of the bridge and us accepting that contract under that theoretic good faith that it was ready to go. I would certainly hope that either the Minister of Transportation or, of course, the Premier, who is acting on behalf of the Finance Minister I believe, will assure me that our government is taking appropriate steps to pursue the original bridge designer, who I think is one of the fundamental problems of this.

Notwithstanding that, I certainly think that the price our government did sign on to this project was certainly outrageous and there certainly could have been more ways to work this project. Setting the size and the price of the bridge aside, it really comes down to the bridge being designed with significant fault and are we pursuing that at this time. I’ll leave that as opening comments. I will certainly have questions as we proceed through.