Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Member for Yellowknife Centre for giving a brief overview. I want to kind of take that and elaborate it to a certain level here. The concept of the Tuk-Inuvik road here has become more political and emotional in nature. Sometimes we need to look at the rationale in moving forward. The benefits of the people of the Northwest Territories seem to not really have been identified adequately, I think, in terms of a lot of things we talk about cost-benefit analysis, as the Member indicated.

I want to make a point to note that the supplemental here is strictly for the due diligence. I can understand that. The bottom line here is I think a lot of Members felt here that this product has been ill prepared in nature and in some cases the selling points are definitely one in which, being of business background, I have a hard time swallowing. I think some Members do as well.

When we look at the estimated cost back in 2009, it was $2.17 million. Two years later we are at 38

percent higher. We are not even sure the ceiling of that is $300 million. We keep referencing a 75/25 split when, in reality, there is a capital of $150 million, so really we are looking more at a 50/50 split. I want to make sure that goes on record.

The business case we have is two years old. This is going back to the 16th Assembly. Again, the P3

component is still pending. Without that proper analysis, I believe the government here is going fairly blindly forward, again, under the how to due diligence. I understand that.

Maintenance costs are still not realized. The last time there was a maintenance cost estimate in 2009 this was $2 million. Today we don’t have a clue. Again, this is still something that the Members are looking forward to seeing. Again, the benefits of the highway have a potential to help with the Mackenzie Gas Project. We understand that, but again we have major companies out here that have stayed relatively silent or at least, if they have, we as Members have not heard from Exxon, Conoco or Shell or companies out there in terms of what they are going to be doing going forward.

Again, while it is likely, there is no guarantee that the Mackenzie Gas Project will proceed. We are at best guess. If it doesn’t, really the economic viability of this highway has been reduced to almost zero. Again, I want to make that also known.

Cost overruns from this government and previous Assemblies are well documented. If we use the past as our guide, Deh Cho Bridge, as a cost example, starting off at $45 million in its early days to balloon out of control at $192 million. Other large products like the Inuvik super school have significantly gone over their original budget. Bluefish Hydro Dam, roughly triple to $37 million, and $13 million has been spent in Taltson hydroelectric project with no lasting benefit in sight.

Madam Chair, I guess moving forward, my general comments are given that, all this information, we haven’t received as much proactive exposure as a government tends to offer here. Again, some of the major issues that came forward, as the Member for Yellowknife Centre indicated, risk management. I want to formulate my general comments to the fact that as of date we haven’t seen anything on risk management or anything of stature. I want to point it out that this risk management piece was a critical component of the Auditor General’s Deh Cho analysis, the Deh Cho Bridge. Again, I am hoping that we don’t repeat ourselves moving forward with this. I am going to leave it at that, Madam Chair. I am sure some of the other Members will have equal comments moving forward.