Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As stated by Mr. Bromley, at the risk of repeating things I feel that I must make my comments known in terms of this particular supp and how I feel about the bridge.

I stated last month in a statement that I was very disappointed that the supp we had to approve last

month was simply confirmation of my doubts about the viability of the whole bridge project. I’ve had concerns since I was first elected to this Assembly. Those concerns, unfortunately, were validated. That was very disappointing, very depressing, I think I stated at the time.

Like Mr. Abernethy, I am extremely frustrated. This project was one which I, like the residents of the NWT, inherited without any input. We came in after the fact. As Members we came in after the fact, some of us. Residents have never really had any input on this particular project at all and what we’ve come to now is an absolute worst-case scenario. The government backstopped this particular project, guaranteed that the project would go forward, that we would guarantee the funding for this project, and that the worst-case scenario, in my mind, is we now have to do that. We have to pick up the loan, we have to pick up the debt, we have to finish the project.

I’m particularly frustrated, I’m depressed, I’m disappointed because I feel backed into a corner, because I agree with Mr. Abernethy who, I think it was, said -- or Mr. Beaulieu, I don’t know which -- we have no option. We could vote the bridge down, but other people have spoken to that. It really isn’t a realistic option.

I, like others, feel that this project has been poorly managed from the outset. Whether that’s the fault of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation or the fault of this particular government and our employees within the government I’m not very sure. I do know that we, according to the concession agreement, I think there was an opportunity for a project management board to be established. One was established. It was a two-member board. I would have thought that the project management board would have been the vehicle through which the project would have been overseen and that there would have been these two individuals keeping a fairly tight lid on what was going on and monitoring what was going on and making sure that the project was being managed properly. Apparently they really only looked at financial matters and didn’t really have much of an oversight in project management, if my understanding is correct. From what I understand as well, that board was disbanded last summer. So there hasn’t been any real work for that board since some time last summer. I have concerns relative to the management of the project and sort of how we got where we are.

I also have a number of other concerns. One of them particularly is some of the figures that we are being advised in terms of the repayment of the loan and of the debt. We’re working with figures which are at this point almost two years old. I have stated in committee, and I will state here for the record as well, that we need to have estimates, updated

estimates of the expenses that are going to be incurred for this project or this bridge once it’s done and estimated numbers for the revenues that we expect to garner from the bridge once it’s done. There are about four or five different items and I realize that it’s difficult to be totally accurate, but I’m asking for an estimate. I’m not asking for a totally accurate number. For me to make a decision on any matter -- and I’m being asked to make a decision on whether or not this supplementary appropriation should be voted in or out -- I need to have that kind of information. I can’t really accurately consider whether or not we should take on this debt if I don’t know whether or not our expenses and revenues are going to match when it comes time in November 2011 when this thing is presumably finished.

I think it is important relative to finances, as well, that we keep the Deh Cho Bridge expenses and revenues in a separate fund, that we treat them separately. They will be within the Department of Transportation, but I think we ought to set up a fund and deal with them separately so that we have an idea of what the total costs for this project are when it comes time and I think it will, as the years go by, provide a better idea of whether or not our expenses and our revenues are accurate and whether or not we’re spending too much or whether we’re making lots of money.

I have a concern for our future years’ budgets. I think that with the inclusion of this additional debt that we are going to probably have to revise our spending downwards somewhat. Again, we don’t have really good information on how our budgets are going to have to be revised downwards, but nobody has yet been able to tell me what the impact is in terms of, say, the budget for 2012-13 or 2013-14. How is this additional debt going to impact the amount of expenditures that we’re going to be able to have in those years?

I have a concern for the Deh Cho Bridge shareholders. They’re being pretty much chucked out, the baby with the bath water kind of thing. What are they going to be left with?

The other concern is what is going to happen to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation? I know that things are being worked on, but when are we going to know what our relationship to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation is? It’s, again, an unanswered question that I would love to know the answer for.

I do, like others, have a concern for public safety. If the suggestions and the rumours are true that we have some poor construction on a part of the bridge that’s already done, then I really am concerned that we may end up with a similar situation to what’s happened in Quebec a couple of times where an overpass has fallen in and I really don’t want us to go there. So we need to be absolutely certain that the construction is as it should be. And I trust the

information from the Ministers, but if we have any kind of a rumour, we’ve got to negate that rumour, we have to verify that, yes, the construction to date is absolutely solid.

I have a concern for the lack of a guarantee that we have for the accommodation that we’re going to get from the federal government, and I don’t want to call the federal Minister a liar, but we don’t have anything on paper and if it’s not a guarantee, then somebody could change their mind tomorrow and we don’t have anything that’s going to prove to us that, yes, this is actually going to happen and we are going to get the guarantee for our debt limit.

One of the things, too, I think is important is that there needs to be an acceptance of responsibility for this mess. Any of the people who were around when things were set in motion should accept some kind of responsibility for the situation that we’re currently in.

I’d like to mention a couple of things which I’ve mentioned before. They have been mentioned again, but they are important to me as well. One is that we have to do a complete analysis and audit of this whole project and an operational audit, not simply a financial. We have to know how things were set in place, what decisions were made, when and by whom, what actions were taken and the costs have to be tallied up. I have mentioned before that has to include our in-house or our in-kind costs that have been incurred by the GNWT staff, particularly the Department of Transportation. I feel very strongly that the Assembly has to set protocols in place that will ensure that in the waning months of an Assembly an action such as the one that was taken at the end of the 15th Assembly can’t happen

again and those things need to be set in place prior to the end of this Assembly and I certainly hope we can do that.

Lastly, I’d like to extend thanks to the GNWT staff, particularly at Transportation and to Ministers who have done a huge amount of work over the last several months to try and get this project salvaged. Even as frustrated as I am, I appreciate the work that they’ve done and I know that they’ve worked very hard to try and keep this thing on the rails and I do have to extend my thanks for that.

I certainly will have questions when we come to discuss the bill itself, but that’s all that I have at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.