Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll deal with some of the comments that were made and requests for information and then I’ll hand it over to Minister Michael McLeod to deal with some of the technical aspects of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and the structures and Associated Engineering, all that side of it.

A number of things that we need to put out in, as Members have said, clear English, plain English for the record for the public of the Northwest Territories, the first one is that, I think Mr. Bromley stated, he’d rather not be here. I’ve heard other Members say that and I share their frustration. We would not want to be here as well. Our preference is that everything sailed along as was initially designed and we would be saying this is the best thing we ever entered into with our aboriginal partnership across the Northwest Territories or the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, in this case, and had a very successful project. Unfortunately, like a self-fulfilling prophecy from some of the Members in the Assembly over the years, this has come to the worst-case scenario. I must say that there are times when it’s been very frustrating when we are in very sensitive areas of discussion with the lenders, and in this case we’ve got a commitment from the federal Minister of Finance, Minister Flaherty, dealing with us on this debt relief for the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Again, we’re making comments that hopefully do not affect us as we go forward and shut those doors on us.

I put a lot of weight in my dealings with Minister Flaherty. He has told me in the past when I was Finance Minister, and this had started even into this first budget of the 16th Assembly, he was clear to

me on what we were going to get or not get. So when he tells me that he will work with us to deal with this debt, I put a lot of weight to his words on that side of it. We’re trying to get the language narrowed down as best as possible and provide that comfort to the Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Secondly, the fact that if we do not deal with this matter as we have proposed to the Members of the Legislative Assembly, then guaranteed what Members are saying now about impacts on projects, impacts on our operations and maintenance, they will be impacted. We will have to live within our fiscal responsibility policy which tells us we have to live within our means. Although this year we would not impact it, we would be impacted on that debt limit before the end of the 16th Legislative Assembly without relief from the federal government. I’m putting a lot of weight in that relief from Minister Flaherty.

The other areas that we do need to again be clear on is that without the necessary steps being taken by this Assembly we would have to pay penalties over and above what is being proposed now. As

much as Members are reluctant to accept that, that is the fact. The concession agreement is there. The concession agreement has been in the hands of Members since the early life of this government. That’s unfortunate it’s there. The reason it was a 35-year agreement was the simple fact that as the Government of the Northwest Territories we knew we couldn’t afford to do a big project in big chunks. So it was spread out much like we would do a mortgage on a home, but a 35-year agreement. This agreement is typical of corporate agreements of this nature when it comes to borrowing of money.

There has been much said about this. In fact, I was doing a lot of historical review of Hansard right back to 2003 when the legislation for the Deh Cho Bridge Act was passed by the Legislative Assembly. There were some very nice things said about that legislation, about what it could mean for us and wishing the partners much success as we move forward. I think many of us shared that in the life of the 14th Legislative Assembly. Unfortunately, we

are in this situation now where we’re having to assume it and make it a wholly owned government project, and as I said in the Minister’s statement earlier, accept and assume the debt and the project on the books as a government capital project.

So there was much support for the act itself. In the act there was the design of a yet-to-be-agreed-to concession agreement. So in the 14th Assembly,

that was put forward; 15th Assembly, the

negotiations began and were worked on and signed off; 16th Assembly, we started dealing with the

financial matters of that concession agreement and getting those details in order and working with quite a number of partners.

The area that was discussed about the fiscal projections being rose-tinted glasses, I would say that’s been far from what I’ve come to look at in my years as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. There are many times that I’ve been told when I used to be in Finance and Finance overall was told too conservative, you’re too conservative, you need to open the doors more. So we tend to operate on that basis and it served us well.

When we sat down as the Legislature at the start of this Assembly, we presented a belt-tightening exercise to live within our means to avoid the debt wall. We have avoided the debt wall, even though we did not succeed to the fullest extent we wanted to, because Members felt it was too harsh. So we did not fully implement the belt-tightening exercise back then, but we still achieved a portion of it that allowed us to live within our means. Same scenario here: we’re proposing we take this project over and we have a fix in place that would allow us to move forward without impacting, and I’ll say this again, without impacting on the fiscal strategy that was presented in Finance Minister Miltenberger’s budget address made in this House at the end of

January. That strategy stays in place before we got the news from the lenders that they wanted us to assume the debt. So we’re still working with that strategy in place.

I must say, I, as well, am frustrated with the fact that we have come to this place in the history of the Government of the Northwest Territories, but at the same time we’ve heard Members about supporting projects across the North, other bridges, other highways, other infrastructure that is needed across the Territory, much the same as we talk about the Deh Cho Bridge. At one point there was the… Someone actually showed me, a past resident of Yellowknife showed me the dollar bills that were made for the bridge project back then and people bought these as a symbolic way of saying they wanted the bridge project. Every government until the 14th Assembly saw it as unable to be done

because of our financial processes and our debt limits, until this matter came up and this approach was taken and risk was weighed and a decision was made to move forward.

So we’re in this position. We have a supplementary appropriation documented to assume the debt and the project and the dollars. We’re working with the federal government to give us relief on the debt situation overall, the debt limit they’ve put in place, short-term relief, as Minister Flaherty has told me, and we will need to go on that basis.

Yes, there needs to be a better accounting. We fully realize that. In fact, when the first signs of the construction problem started to appear, that project management board, as Member Bisaro spoke of, was in place. Following that, with all of the difficulties that came in place, there was a new management structure put in place and the lender signed off on that. So for the year following, things moved along much better. In fact, the construction company now, Ruskin, that is doing this, showed that that next year... They were able to move that project along in a manner much smoother and move it along at a good rate, and we’re holding now, as we go forward, that that will be the practice going forward. But for the rest of the details on the technical side and all of that, I will go to Minister McLeod on that.

Thank you, Premier Roland. We’ll now go to Minister Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d also like to thank the Members for their comments. I certainly can appreciate a certain level of frustration on this project. I don’t believe I have to remind anybody why the bridge project was embarked on. This has been on the minds of the residents of this area for years, from the time the Yellowknife road was constructed to connect to the rest of Canada, there has always been a bottleneck, there has always been a very fragile piece of infrastructure that had to be constructed

every year, and we also had to rely on ferry service that had a lot of interruptions and we still see that to this day. Through the concept of a public-private partnership we at last had the means to move forward on construction of a very important piece of public infrastructure that would allow us to construct this transportation infrastructure. It would also allow us to not deplete our capital resources, which we felt was important.

I still believe that it’s an important part of what we do; it’s an important piece of infrastructure. At the time, a year and a half ago when the opportunity was made available for me to assume the Department of Transportation I talked to the Premier because I felt that I could lend something to this department and to this project. I continue to believe in the project, and I certainly continue to believe in our staff at DOT.

For the time that I’ve been involved with the government as a Regular Member and as a Cabinet Minister, we’ve all talked about we need to think outside of the box, we have to be creative. Certainly that’s the direction I’ve taken as a result from what I hear in this government and what I hear from Regular Members. We’ve done a lot of things on that front. The Tuk-Inuvik road is a good example. It’s a partnership with those two communities, and it’s allowed us to provide a lot of work and move forward on that front where it’s attracted the attention of the federal government. We also have done the same thing with the City of Yellowknife; we created a partnership, something that historically hadn’t been done in terms of working together with communities. And we continue to do that. We’re doing it now with the project description report on the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We’re also signing agreements with the Gwich’in and the Sahtu and now the Deh Cho also want to have meetings.

So it’s an interesting way to do business. It’s something that we need to look at and the reality is if we don’t put on our creative hats, a lot of things wouldn’t happen. Certainly I think if the direction is that we change the way we do business and wait for the feds to do it, that’s something we’ll take as direction and move forward on that front. But recognizing that this project right from the get-go was a megaproject, any kind of slippage, any type of delays were going to be very expensive. I think we all recognize now there were challenges with the design that didn’t pass all the inspections that were required, and there were also challenges with the contractor and things had to be changed, decisions had to be made, and they were very difficult ones.

Earlier on we had anticipated, I think, MLA Hawkins indicated that we should have had federal support. Well, we did seek federal support in terms of dollars and investment. They were not in a position to

make that contribution as they didn’t have their P3 office set up and they just set the program up recently.

The bridge design was reviewed by advisors that we hired independently, that gave us the confidence to go ahead. There is, of course, as we know now, a lot of difficulty getting the conceptual design to pass a lot of the tests, but there is also rationale that we were challenged again because one of the designers left the project and we had to bring in new people onto the design team. The question was raised will we be going after the original designer for recovery? I imagine that’s something we’re going to visit. It’s under consideration. When a project goes forward without the original designer not being available, that certainly causes challenges and so we’re exploring that and we’re looking at other ways to see what we can recover. Having said that, we expect any litigation that is embarked on won’t be pretty and that’s certainly something that has to be considered as the project is stabilized and we move forward.

The regulations for the toll on the toll rate is again another area that we’re working on. It’s not done yet, but this is something we need to have in place before the summer of 2011.

The issues raised by MLA Ramsay are certainly not new ones. He’s raised them before. He’s been very vocal about the project. He’s stated on some occasions that he supports the project but has concerns. I’m still trying to find what areas he supports, and, of course, the public tender issue is something that he’s raised and we’ve responded by indicating that we did have initial discussions with ATCON Construction and weren’t able to conclude our negotiations or our discussions with them. Because of time and because of costs we felt the best way to go and we had people that concurred with us that this is what we needed to do. Going to a public tender would have meant another year delay. That would have cost at least the price of the interest and what it would mean to payments on interest and principal and that would have been, we calculate, at least $8 million plus and that’s not something we wanted to come forward for another contribution.

We agree that an audit needs to be done on the bridge. We have committed that we will be doing a review internally and also at the conclusion of the project have an independent company. I also believe the Premier had made those commitments prior to now and a lot of things have to be looked at. We have to look at the internal costs of what it costs us as a department, as a government and things that were not charged back to the project itself. We would expect that’s over $1 million for some of the staff that we have that put their time towards it, some of the vehicle costs, the travel costs, the hotel rooms, things of that nature have to

be calculated and packaged up so we can provide it. We have to take a detailed look at the construction costs to date. We have been reviewing it as we went along. We have to do a wrap-up and see what has transpired there.

I’m not sure when the Member states that I don’t believe the government or the department has an accurate measurement of how far the project has moved along and why he would challenge that. I’m not sure what his expertise is or who he is using to provide that information, but we feel it’s 50 percent completed, $90 million of the $180 million budget has been spent. I guess we need clarity as to what the Member means when he says what is also hanging out in the background. I thought we were pretty clear when we indicated that the contract for Ruskin was at $68 million. We signed for $72 because it included a $4 million carry-over. If that wasn’t clear to the Member I certainly apologize for that, but that was the intent and I believe that was brought forward to the committee.

There was also a question raised as to what day did the Bridge Corporation actually sign a contract with Ruskin Construction and that day was the 4th of March, that’s the day that the contract was actually signed. What caused the lenders to call or request the government to assume the loan? I think it’s pretty clear that they were feeling that there was a design default on the milestone that they set. We don’t agree, but there is no mechanism for us to appeal it or dispute it. So it’s brought us to this point. Also to look at cancelling the contract with Ruskin right now we feel would have huge financial implications and I’m still not happy when a Member raises a concern and points to a company that could do it cheaper, a company that feels they were left out and now is operating in hindsight and giving us a really lowball price. So it’s concerning, but I mean I have to appreciate the Member’s point of view.

Like other Members, I was happy to hear the comments from Mr. Abernethy. He’s indicated that is one of the first times that we’re going to be voting on this. I think the House has had a couple of occasions to vote on it, maybe not these Members but the 14th Assembly the Deh Cho Bridge Act was

voted on and more recently we had the $15 million supp that came forward. He’s also indicated that there’s a lot of lessons that need to be learned and we need to take a look at the concept of P3, what worked, what didn’t work and what do we do to prevent things of this nature from happening. I think there are a lot of things that we can look at for improvement. There’s also, of course, concern that he’s raised with myself because he felt I was confident on this project. Mr. Chair, I have to point to the fact that it’s difficult to deal with the number of challenges that have come forward, but at the same time if I was going to lose my confidence in the project, then I guess I wouldn’t or shouldn’t be

in this position. It’s still a project that can move forward, it can be stabilized. We’ve made a lot of changes.

Aside from the $15 million cost overrun, it has not cost any more than what we had anticipated. The $15 million is going to be recovered. We have to make sure people understand that and I certainly agree. Assuming the debt is something that has always been part of this project as we guaranteed it as a government. Of course, this is the worst-case scenario and we have to make sure and make it clear to the public as to what impact this would have to our borrowing limit and we also have to qualify and what and why we hired the team we have in terms of providing that information on their qualifications and what has given us the confidence as we move forward.

There is a timeline that’s put in place of 2011. That was not a number that was picked out of the air. That’s something that was discussed and calculated and the construction company felt was something they could achieve. So there is a schedule.

I also want to make a couple comments on Mr. Beaulieu’s statements regarding not knowing about the $165 million. I thought it was fairly clear, but it’s unfortunate that he misunderstood and I would point out to him that he should feel free to come and request additional information from us or a briefing if that is warranted. There is a return on the investment. I’m not sure why he would feel that there is no return. Up to now it’s only been for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and for us it would be that piece of infrastructure that we would assume in 35 years. There is a long-term commitment for 35 years on this project and there always has been.

I also wanted to point out that I certainly agree with some of the comments made by Mrs. Groenewegen about the $185 million capital investment. This is probably one of the few projects we have that has a self-liquidating component to it as three-quarters of this is either money that we’re already spending or money that we’ll be generating. It has some very positive parts to it. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had so many challenges.

I also want to make it clear that I’m concerned that a number of Members have raised potential structural problems with this project. I have no indication of that. We’ve gone back and talked to the people involved with the project. We’ve talked to the contractor. I’m not sure where that’s coming from. We know there are some people outside of this forum who may be raising this. It would be in order I think for us to be informed of that. If there is a concern for public safety or public security, then we should know that. Right now we have no evidence of that and we’ve talked to a lot of people in light of being informed that there were concerns.

So if anybody has any information, I certainly want to hear that.

There also is and still are many positive aspects of this project. Mrs. Groenewegen pointed to inflation and global warming. I would add to that convenience and environmental concerns and safety. All these things are still positive parts of this project.

Mr. Bromley raised a lot of issues also and made some interesting comments about this project having a checkered political and technical past. He’s also raised the concern about some of the issues on the technical side not being fully resolved. I would appreciate if we could get more clarity on what he’s pointing to. We feel we have a new design. We have the checks and balances. We have quality control in place that would prevent any concerns from coming forward.

He’s also made some comments or given his opinion about our fiscal framework and projections that are used. I guess our projection is just what it is: a projection based on our best information and best analysis with our best people.

The comments made by Wendy Bisaro regarding the project being poorly managed is something that I guess we’ll find out as we move forward. Fingers continue to be pointed either to the Bridge Corporation, ourselves, the contractor, the designer. I guess there are a lot of people involved and I’m sure everybody shares a little bit of what has happened.

There was a project management board set up initially and then last year we decided that it had really no value. They didn’t have a lot of authority or power to control. We were in a position where we had to step in and enhance our involvement. It was felt this was the best move.

We are looking at doing more assessments on truck traffic and more recently, as has been brought forward as an issue.

We are also tracking our revenues and expenditures separately. That’s a requirement of the Deh Cho Bridge Act.

As to the involvement of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in the community of Fort Providence, that’s something that’s ongoing. We’d like to resolve that as soon as possible. We’ve had a number of meetings already. We plan to meet with them again, at least some of the senior people, this week sometime and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll have that resolved.

There has been mention by a number of people that there needs to be a complete analysis of the project. We need to set protocols in place. We certainly agree. We don’t dispute that.

Again, Mr. Yakeleya raised how this project has created headache and heartache. I certainly can

support that. The concept sounds very simple: you design a project, you provide the funding, you hire the contractors, you go forward. I think all those ingredients were part of this project. There have been challenges that have factored in. But I also agree with the Member when he states that there are other projects that have to be considered. We need to be able to at some point decide or become creative enough that we can deal with the Great Bear bridge crossing, the Peel River that the MLA for Mackenzie Delta keeps raising, and Liard, and all those crossings need to be addressed at some point. I’m not sure if that’s something we want to wait for the federal government to do or if we’re going to try to move forward on those fronts. Right now we need to focus on stabilizing this project.

Mr. Menicoche raised the issue of better communication. We agree. We have already started moving on that whole area that needs to be addressed. We have developed a website that we are in the testing stages of. We are currently using it internally and at some point we would like to have that opened up for the public so they can see what’s happening and get the reports. There is some information on the GNWT website, but we’d like to see a bridge website also. We also want to start looking at providing information in print and continue with providing reports to the MLAs so they are in tune as this project unfolds.

All these things need to be done. We need to deal with the current issues in front of us first, of course. And we have to also look at how to respond to other communities that are asking us to do similar projects.

I guess MLA Abernethy summed it up the best. There is virtually not a lot of changes to the project except for the fact that there is a cost factor because of the delay of $15 million. Now we have to assume the debt. We’ve always guaranteed the debt, but now it comes on our books and of course there are concerns for the implications to the debt wall.

There were many things said today and many things that we agree with. Some things we need to get more clarity on. There is a learning curve, as Mr. Krutko said, and it has been a huge one. We need to of course always have the due diligence as we deal with companies and design. So I appreciate all the comments that were made and look forward to further questions on more specific detail.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. All the Members have had the opportunity to make general comments. The Premier and Minister have responded. Is committee agreed that we have concluded general comments?

Does the committee wish to proceed with detail on Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, 2010-2011?

It starts on page 5, but before we get started we’ll take a short break. Thank you, Members.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. We’re reviewing Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, 2010-2011 (Infrastructure Expenditures), and we’re on detail, page 5. First on my list is Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn’t going to get into a history lesson here but perhaps just to go back a little bit, if we look back, and it’s hard… I know the Minister of Transportation said the blame has to be shared around a number of people on this, and if I can just call it like I see it, there are two guys sitting at the table here, both were Members of the previous Cabinet, and if you want to get a little bit of a history lesson, you know, the Finance Minister, former Finance Minister, the Chair of the FMB, and the Minister who would have approved the concession agreement in the dying days of the last government is sitting right here. That’s a bit of a history lesson for you.

This is a serious situation that we’ve gotten ourselves into, and the Premier and the Minister of Transportation, they can spin things however they want to spin them, especially when it comes to the potential of this project to negatively impact the Territory’s finances on a go forward basis. The reason why it’s possible, I believe, for them to say that it’s not going to impact the fiscal strategy is because this supplementary appropriation hasn’t been passed. Absolutely, this expenditure, if it is on our books -- and Mr. Krutko is right, we haven’t gotten anything in writing from anybody -- if this expenditure ends up on the books of the Government of the Northwest Territories it is going to impact our ability to borrow money, it’s going to impact our ability to spend money. And let’s be frank and honest with the residents in the Northwest Territories, those people living in every community across the Territory that are going to be looking for infrastructure spending in their communities, if this thing continues to tilt sideways like it has, our ability as a government to deliver for our residents is going to be negatively impacted.

I’m not ready, maybe some of my colleagues might be ready to drink that Kool-Aid that’s out there, but I’m not willing to drink that Kool-Aid. I would equate it, Mr. Chairman, to something like a credit card and we’ve got ourselves up against our credit limit. We might be able to get a bit of a reprieve from the federal government, Mr. Chairman, but that $165 million is going to have to be repaid at some point

in time. There’s no mistaking that. There’s no getting around that. Certainly, the project is going to generate some revenue, so I guess that is one good aspect to it, but we are going to be on the hook for this, and there are some reasons here that, again, I just can’t see myself…

The right thing to do is to see this project through to conclusion, and I want to see that happen. However, there are some things here, Mr. Chairman, that, in my view, just need to be thoroughly addressed, and they haven’t been addressed.

The first question I’d have, and I guess I would direct it to the Minister of Transportation, is the concerns are out there over the concrete work on the south piers. If we want to get into specifics, I can get into specifics on which pier, how many loads were sent back. I can get into the core samples that were taken and, again, I’ve got a number of pictures, Mr. Chairman, that I do intend on tabling in this House either tomorrow, on Wednesday, that clearly show, and I’m not an engineer, but they clearly show cracks, thermal cracks on a number of the south piers, they show scour rock that is nowhere near the diameter that it was supposed to be for and it’s not even granite, it’s limestone. Most of that scour rock that was put in to protect the piers on the south side of that river has probably flowed away with the current by now. So what protection is there under the water for those piers today? I think that’s a question that needs to be thoroughly analyzed and looked at before, like I said earlier, Mr. Chairman, we approve additional money for this project and we build on top of the already in-the-ground infrastructure there. We need to make sure that that infrastructure is sound and it’s going to meet testing that should be… I think we should get a third party in there to have a look at the concrete work on the south piers.

Also, Mr. Chairman, there are issues with some other things on that, but I guess I have to ask questions here so I will ask that question to the, I guess, the first one would be to the concrete work on the south piers. What can the Minister provide to Members to give us every assurance that that concrete is sound and would pass quality assurance tests if a third party went in there and had a look at it? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. First I’ll go to Premier Roland and then I’ll go to Minister McLeod. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess, to deal with some of the spin that Mr. Ramsay continues to put out there and innuendo about things lacking and potential trouble here and trouble there, we’ve dealt with this from the day I first took the chair as Premier of the 16th Legislative Assembly, we’ve provided the information. Unfortunately we find ourselves here

where we’re actually putting a document forward that would assume the debt and management of the project and make it a Government of the Northwest Territories, a fully owned and operated project of the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Member says let’s be frank and honest. Well, then I ask the Member himself to be frank and honest. Put out the facts. If he’s calling into question the designation of individuals who have signed off on the tests, then he needs to put that on the record. He should have, in fact, when he first came across this information, been down the hall to either myself or the Minister to say we’ve got some real serious issues where we have one engineer calling into question another engineer’s work so that we could actually look into it. Bigger and more importantly is we have one of the largest firms, or a very large firm in Canada now working as part of the project team. They, of course before they accept this and move on and sign off on a final product, will be doing their own inspections and audits.

Now, I’m surprised that the Member, who I believe is a card carrying Conservative, would say that the Conservative government would not honour their commitment, that the federal Minister of Finance won’t honour his commitment. I put a huge weight on the fact that we have a commitment from Mr. Flaherty to work with us on that and his staff have followed up with our staff. So we know that work is progressing on that basis.

Now, for actual technical pieces and some of the calls of question, you know, we’re protected as Members in this House, but that still should not allow us to throw out words and rhetoric that damage reputations of firms and individuals in the Northwest Territories or anywhere else we do business. So I would urge the Member, if he had facts, then he should be up to the Minister’s office to lay them down so that we could ensure that all the things that were done, but from what’s been laid out with our partnership, with the new project management team, with their credibility on the line, I am fully satisfied they will do that and I’m sure the Minister of Transportation will be able to give more detailed information on that project team. Thank you.

Thank you, Premier Roland. Minister Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In response to the comments, some of them being very serious allegations that there has been discrepancies that are not being dealt with, I certainly, as the Premier indicated, would appreciate if that information would be brought to my attention. I would believe that some of the pictures that he’s looking at, some of it we have in our own possession. There is no doubt some deficiencies that we are dealing with, some have

been dealt with and some are scheduled to be resolved over the next little while and a scour rock is a deficiency that’s been noted, it hasn’t been paid for. We have held back on it and we have talked to the project people that were on site and confirmed that the cement work that was referred to in some of the piers has been looked at. The people that did repairs and inspected it claim that they’re all completed. We have documentation, they’ve signed it off and there are other companies that have a very credible stake in here that also inspected it as independent companies; Levelton and BPTEC was also involved in quality assurance.

So, Mr. Chairman, we have many experts on the job. There are many layers of inspection that take place. The contractor has inspectors on site. The Deh Cho Bridge Corporation had a firm that they utilized. The lenders also had a company that took part in inspections and knew what was going on on a daily basis, and of course we had our people that were on site and reviewed the information. So I would appreciate if the Member could bring that information forward and we could qualify whether there’s any merit to it. I believe it’s some deficiencies that we’ve already noted and I would be glad to provide the detail to the Member so that he can be reassured as this project is going forward.

We have to also ensure that the public has the security of knowing that the safety of their families and themselves are being looked after and that’s our first consideration, Mr. Chairman. That’s something we need to work out. If the Member is hearing things, if the Member has information, we need to get our hands on it and he should bring that information forward and to as to where he’s getting it from. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. We’re on page 5, 2010-2011, Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, (Infrastructure Expenditures), Transportation, capital investment expenditures, highways, not previously authorized, $165.439 million. Next on my list is Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have several areas of concern, but my main area of concern is the financial situation that the Deh Cho Bridge will find the GNWT in. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance, I guess the Premier, if he would be able to provide loan details of the details of the $165 million loan that was taken by the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. My understanding is that we guaranteed the loan. Therefore, I’d like to know if the Minister or the Premier will be able to provide the details of that loan. That’s my first question.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding is that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transportation in meetings with

committee members provided that information and we’ll be able to provide it again to the Members regarding the breakdown of that loan.

Now, we need to be clear on the language we use because initially the reason this project was put through the DCBC was to keep it off our accounting or off our books and we couldn’t guarantee the debt in that sense, but we indemnified or we, through the guaranteed payments on the 35-year concession agreement, we in fact backstopped as a full agreement and I referenced that back in February 2001 in questions in this House, or February 21, 2008, on that area. But I’ll see if that information was provided and we’ll be able to provide that again to Members and I’ll have to ask the Minister of Finance what he has there and what he can provide. Thank you.

I wasn’t provided with the details of a loan. I don’t think we were provided the details of the loan, or I don’t recall seeing the details of the loan. Actually, I would like to see the documents that have put us in this position, because this is putting the government into long-term debt with no possibilities in there at all for any explorations of any terms.

Earlier on in response to the general comments from the committee here, the Premier indicated that this was like a mortgage, in a sense. Now, in a mortgage you get terms, one year, two years, five years, 10 if you want, whatever, but generally within a longer amortization of a loan, which I understand this is a 35-year amortized, this loan is amortized over 35 years. Now, within that, if this was a mortgage, probably a good long term would be five years. Now the indications are that this is actually a one-sided 35-year term loan. I’m interested for the reason that I want to find out who guaranteed the loan, who signed the loan and if there are any provisions in the loan to get out.

Earlier, as I responded, I talked about like a mortgage, 25 years-plus. In this case it’s 35 years, but it is a typical commercial loan. I’ll have Ms. Melhorn speak to more of the details.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Ms. Melhorn.

Thank you, Ms. Melhorn. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you. I understand obviously what type of loan was signed from what I’m hearing. I understand what type of loan was signed. My curiosity continues to be why. It’s beyond me why we would sign a term for the full amortization period. That’s what I find confusing. Okay, so, there’s a penalty if we pay out early. I mean, at some point unless the penalty continues to grow as to the money they would have made considering whether it’s using future value or present value of money or whatnot, but if we actually signed a loan or supported individuals to build infrastructure in the Northwest Territories to sign a loan that obviously is one sided, it’s a long-term loan, you can’t get out of it. If you get out of it you’re going to pay millions. That being the case, at some point it must become feasible for this government to pay the penalty and get out of the loan. At some point. It has to become feasible.

Now, I recognize the fact that maybe we’re guaranteeing this through actual payments of $8 million a year or whatever that is, which actually I don’t believe would be a correct number, that much money over that time period. If you take $8 million a year and times it by 35, that’s $280 million. That’s not a whole lot of interest. But it is some interest on $165 million over 35 years. That’s $115 million in interest. I hope that loan doesn’t indicate they would make good all of that interest. One reason I want to see the details of the loan.

The other is that I don’t believe that number of $8 million in loan payments on an annual basis satisfies this loan at the end of its term. It’s too little. In reality on a basic standard mortgage of 4 percent or whatever it is, you’re going to pay more than one and a half times or one and three-quarters times what the loan is. If you take $165 million and at $115 million that makes it $280 million. That’s less than a regular mortgage, for example. I recognize this is not a mortgage, but like a mortgage it probably has similar infrastructures that they are paying interest on interest and so on and so forth. So something doesn’t quite calculate in my mind. First of all, why would someone sign a loan this way or support the loan in this way?

I’d ask the Minister of Finance again if we could see the details of the loan rather than a briefing note on the details.