Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ve listened with interest to all of these comments. I guess they call it a debate for a reason. I don’t know if this is a debate or not, but I’ll tell you this is a debatable investment, that’s for sure.

I feel conflicted. There are so many unknowns, so many needs, so little resources and we’re kind of jumping off the bridge here blind and hoping we’re going to find a parachute on the way down I think. I guess that’s the nature of taking risks. We take a leap of faith and you hope for the best.

But some of the concerns, Mr. Chairman, if I can summarize them, and I want to say as a returning Member there is an element of déjà vu on the Deh Cho Bridge on this because it was just a couple of million and a couple more million and a couple

more million and pretty soon we were at $9 million and do we keep going or do we shut it down? Well, ultimately that decision was taken away from us and because we’d done the work, we were committed financially, psychologically, emotionally. People talk about infrastructure; it’s hard not to be supportive. Nation building, territory building, you hear these phrases, but I guess the issue is there’s a lot of things that we’d like in all of our regions, but we’ve got to pick and choose what the projects are that will go ahead.

The issue with this specific project that I have a concern with is the timing. We’re being asked for a supplementary appropriation so that this work can all be done in the next six weeks. I find it hard to believe that this money can be spent, expended and the work completed in the next six weeks.

On the flipside of that, the region is economically slow and this would provide activity. So every argument has a counter to it. So we spend another $2.5 million, Ottawa is talking about austerity measures, they’re talking about reductions all over the place and yet we hear from our representatives that go down to Ottawa, that Ottawa is committed to this project, that this is a pet project of the Prime Minister, that Minister Flaherty has made the commitment. We haven’t seen it on paper, but we understand that’s the case. Then it begs the question, well, why is our little government being asked to put another $2.5 million on the table, and then another $2.5 million on the geotechnical, on the due diligence, when the federal government has so many more resources. If this is really their idea, it’s not their idea, but I mean if there’s really all this support there for it.

So I think that there are pros and cons at every turn on this thing. One of the concerns I think is some of the foundational work, the cost-benefit analysis, the technology. We hear about the issues with Highway No. 7, with the Dempster Highway, with the melting of permafrost, with the enormous costs of maintaining and in some cases kind of restructuring the transportation infrastructure we already have that’s being affected by wear and tear and changing ground conditions.

So we just need to go into this with our eyes wide open here, folks. There are a lot of unanswered questions. The cost-benefit analysis for this piece of work, there’s the science. How are we going to build this road so that we’re not ending up with something like even we had between the Rae turnoff and Yellowknife here? My goodness, that’s a new highway, if you can call it a highway. It’s very sad driving on that road. It seems like we practically started repairing it the day we finished building it. If you think it’s a problem here building on rock and the Canadian Shield, wait until you get up there. Have we assessed what the ongoing maintenance cost is? We’re going to raise the expectation in the

Beaufort-Delta and in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk that these folks are going to have a serviceable road to travel back and forth on. We could have a pile of mush when we’re done. It’s a global changing in the weather. But, again, I guess that’s all part of the risk factors.

So there are good things to be said. There are questions to be answered. So we’re called upon to make a decision. I hope that the federal government stays true to their commitment that after we’ve financially committed to this project and continuing with this due diligence and putting this money out front, I certainly hope that the federal government doesn’t get any cold feet on this. I hope they stay with us on this.

I like the fact that it is a cost-shared project and that we’re not doing it on our own. There are some people who would say that this type of infrastructure is totally a federal responsibility, but if it favourably impacts our borrowing limit then some would say development is a good thing, we need more money for development, we need this kind of activity in all regions of the Northwest Territories to spur on economic development.

There are others on the converse that would say this government shouldn’t be getting into any more debt than the $500 million limit that we have right now. There are people who say we shouldn’t be mortgaging the future. That’s another argument you hear out there. I’m just trying to articulate some of the concerns.

In a perfect world if the road gets built and it is the beginning of the Mackenzie Valley Highway and we can afford to maintain it going forward… Every time we make a commitment like this, though, we also have to remember that it’s not just a one-time thing. It is the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of a piece of infrastructure like this. We’re not going to abandon it after we start it. It is the ongoing cost which we don’t really know much about at this point. Whatever we spend on this we won’t spend on something else and there are a lot of priorities out there in our communities on a much smaller scale, many of them, than this particular one.

However, on Friday afternoon when we met in committee I said I would support the $2.5 million and I will continue to support the $2.5 million today when we vote on this. It sort of sounds from what I’ve said leading up to this that I’m doing so with some trepidation about what the future of this project is. I do support development outside of the capital. We talked about the $2.3 million for Betty House and the $40 million office building going uptown. Where does it end in terms of the concentration of capital in Yellowknife here? This is an example of something outside of Yellowknife and I hope that the same consideration will be extended to other regions as we go forward and look for projects that we can support.

I will say today and put on the record we need something in the South Slave. We’ve got prospects, we’ve got promise of things that could create jobs and create economy for our people, but we need a fair and equitable distribution of the resources.

I’ve heard other people say road? What’s a road? I mean, we’re pretty fortunate in the South Slave, too, that we are all connected by roads. We do have a pretty good road infrastructure there and that’s something other parts of the Territories only dream of. But it will come and this will be one step towards it.

I will support the expenditures contained in the supplementary appropriation here for infrastructure, but a lot of it requires a leap of faith.