Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the Members have raised continuously, since the start of this Assembly, the concern about the Deh Cho Bridge and the project, to the point where we dealt with the item yesterday and will continue to deal with it for the next couple of days.

On this particular motion, one of the things that I must put out there clearly, although it is a furthermore within the motion, that we officials acted and appointed officials actively cooperate with the Auditor General. That is bordering on stating we don’t. In fact, we do. Every year we work with the Auditor General cooperatively in providing information. In fact, Mr. Speaker, on the Deh Cho Bridge Project, we have worked with the Auditor

General on the public accounts for 2007-08, 2008-09.

The Department of Finance provided the Office of the Auditor General documents. That is the concession agreement and the audited statements of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation for the two fiscal years. The Department of Finance also provided the Office of the Auditor General with access to review all Financial Management Board records and decisions that relate to the Deh Cho Bridge Project.

The Auditor General’s office obtained selective working papers from independent auditors for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in relation to the financial statement audit, and in August 2009 the Auditor General’s office met with representatives of the departments of Transportation and Finance to receive a briefing on the project at the time that the Auditor General’s office requested and provided additional documents, and that is Ravi Associates production report, a report on key lessons learned after the first 12 months and recommendations for improvements going forward; KY Lin International design report recommendations to improve the design of the bridge, BPTEC and DNW Engineering Limited design report recommendations to improve design of the bridge and the Department of Transportation’s threat risk analysis of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. On top of that, the concession agreement, the cost-benefit analysis and other relevant documents posted on the Department of Transportation’s site. In fact, when the Auditor General’s report on the GNWT public accounts was tabled with the accounts on February 9, 2010, the report did not mention the Deh Cho Bridge and the Auditor General has yet to indicate whether a comprehensive audit of the Deh Cho Bridge project would be initiated.

Needless to say, if the Office of the Auditor General does do an audit specifically on this project, we would cooperate fully with their office, as we have done to date, to ensure that any areas of concern are addressed by that. We wait to see the results of that.

We feel, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, through the Minister of Transportation, through the Minister of Finance, through providing all the documents and the meetings we have had with committee on this, that we have provided the full gambit of information there and dealt with this to the level that we have come to this House with. Unfortunately, in the sense that the supp document that this House has yet to deal with. On that basis, feeling that we have already provided a lot of information and will continue to work cooperatively, we will be abstaining from the vote on this. Thank you.