Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are about nine months into this government here, and in that nine months I have heard a lot of concerns, a lot of asks and a lot of community concerns from this side of the table. All my colleagues have heard of Highway No. 7 quite a bit. I have heard access roads to gravel sources so the roads in the communities can be maintained. I have heard schools that need washrooms, who need new schools. Some communities haven’t had a school retrofit for a long time. Myself, we are looking at getting a child development centre. If it’s not done, two-thirds of the kids who are accessing that school are going to lose out this year.
I just read in the news that Colville Lake’s airport runway just got washed out yet again. However, we are going to have to tell these communities that we are going to have to put these back on the backburner. Why? Because of the continuing saga of the Deh Cho Bridge.
It is something that we have been dealing with for a long time. Up until yesterday, up until the Minister gave his statement in the House and all the media reports that I have heard on the news this morning, I didn’t feel the frustrations until yesterday that all Regular Members past and present feel about this project. The mismanagement of funds, signing off on a project that wasn’t even complete with the planning process, for it to go ahead and yet now we are paying for those prices again. It has even bankrupted a southern company. It removed one of our Aboriginal groups out of the process. It is just continuing.
I believe, being new to this government, this is the third time that this government is coming back into this House asking for more money. I am not sure when it is going to stop. I do sure hope that this is the last time it’s going to stop, because there are too many concerns from our communities.
I haven’t heard the concerns from my colleagues across the floor, their concerns for their communities, the projects that they need, but I am sure there are some. Like I said, we are going to have to put that back on the backburner because of the money that we are continuing to put on the capital projects such as the Deh Cho Bridge.
I would like to see this project completed so that we can start focusing more on our small communities,
our communities where we can start putting projects and money for the buildings. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.