Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have thought about this motion quite a bit actually. I think to myself, why couldn’t I support a motion that requests an audit? I have no issue with that on that principle, because many projects deserve a second look going over and whatnot. I think it deserves probably that respect and due, especially considering, respectfully, the number of questions that have come out of this whole process.

Mr. Speaker, I also question the value of this, considering that the Auditor General has already been requested once before and rejected doing the special audit. As the Premier has mentioned, this has been on the public accounts for a number of years. They have been forwarding information to review. They did not pursue it. I can’t speak to why they chose not to, but I think ultimately we know all of the problems already. I stress respectfully, of

course, but a lot of the problems had to do with the organization and how this was put together. We don’t need a special audit to tell us that.

I stress respectfully again, but the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation I think was a little over their head in this particular project. We don’t need a special audit to say that, when we got what we thought was a fixed price, a guaranteed contract and certainly a completed design, to find out later it was a design that was completely inadequate and that could not be built safely in any manner. We had a report like TY Lin International that says that. Do we have to look at long-term financial implications? I think we understand that today. We discussed at length about adding this to our books and the difficulty that will arise and certainly the challenges before this. I am not against an audit that wants to put all of this information together once again, but I think we already do know and fully understand the implications of this.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is I am of great belief that the Department of Finance and the Department of Transportation probably worked quite aggressively and honestly with good steward of our policies, to make sure that they did comply fairly and honestly, but I just worry and I caution, sort of, the House on this. Is this an exercise just to continue to keep taking punches at the Deh Cho Bridge and the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation throughout this process? I think we are well aware of the failings that have come about from this. We are all well aware of people who worked very hard to make this process go forward and bring it back on the rails. Further investigation, although I certainly won’t stop it in any way by arguing against it, I think it is just going to continue to find out what we already know.

It is a sad case. I will definitely say it is sad to say that this could be a scar on our Territory’s finances for many years to come that we will have to find ways to avoid. This is a project that the train has left the station long ago. It is up to this Assembly to make wise decisions, as well as obviously it is up to many other Assemblies to figure out how to balance them out.

Just in closing, I’ll vote in favour of the motion. I don’t believe in abstaining. I believe you either vote in favour or against. But I will certainly vote in favour of it because I’ve never believed in abstaining. In this particular case I don’t see any reasonable way of standing against it. I’ll allow it to pass in my view. I definitely think this information is already before us and we’ve heard a lot of details.