Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Neudorf.

The detail of the briefing, actually, I should let the Minister know, I actually have a copy. I have actually gone through it and out of that stemmed many, many other questions, so no need to send one to the office. I already have one, so we can save the paper and save the time.

The detail of why they’re not meeting the existing deadline of the fall under the existing contract still needs to be cleared up. Thank you.

The key is the resources we’re putting on the table, as Mr. Neudorf indicated, they’re going to have two shifts working instead of one. They’re going to be working 20 hours a day as opposed to one shift with half the men. If you do the math, do the building schedule, then you can see that if we don’t concentrate those efforts then, yes, this will drag out until another building season and we will lose all the revenues and all the other… We’ll run ferries and winter roads for another year. That’s the key piece. Thank you.

The old Minister kept articulating that it would open in the fall of 2011, then he insisted it would be open in the fall of 2012 through the process. What particularly changed that we are unable to fulfill under the existing contract? It had a schedule of the previous year to be opened, and for some reason there clearly is slippage, as someone would use in the terminology here. What part of the slippage is our fault and what part of the slippage is their fault, and can we get some details as to what the slippage actually is? Because we did have a schedule on this previously; actually, a couple of times. Why is the contractor not responsible for the slippage in schedule?

The contractor in the contract is responsible. There has been, clearly, slippage. The reality we are faced with is the contractor was unable to conclude the work in the time that was predicted and agreed to. We are here today 90 percent complete, literally a few months from the end of this project to get it done. As has been committed to once the project is done, there will be the full review and debrief as to what happened so that we can learn all of the things we need to learn and going forward. Thank you.

Madam Chair, I do appreciate the Minister’s answer, but what I took from this last answer regarding the slippage and how it has fallen

behind schedule, it sounds like it is the fault of the contractor. Are we not rewarding bad work or incomplete work? That is the question.

Madam Chair, the point is that this bridge is getting done. It is going to be one of the most impressive pieces of infrastructure we have in the North. I can tell you from my experience and now going on five years at the table with this project, that it is a very complex process with lots of moving parts.

We have been over all of the bumps in the road that we have had, and the hurdles we have had, and we have managed our way through them all. We’re going to do that in this case, as well, and point out how close we are to the finish line. We want to be cutting the ribbon here in November to have people using this.

There were differences. There were issues that came up throughout this process with former contractors, current contractors, other contractors. We have worked hard to adjust them all. We now have come forward with the final package and we think, given how close we are to the finish line, that will allow us to conclude that. That is our request here today. Thank you.

Madam Chair, the next issue, which is ironically the previous issue, was the Minister said there was slippage. He pointed to the contractor being responsible for not meeting the objectives of the schedule, which clearly is the issue here. What type of penalties or enforcement clauses on the slippage of the scheduling do we have? What can we invoke? Thank you.

Madam Chair, there was a fundamental decision to be made and we have made it. That decision is this: Do we tie ourselves in knots in the midst of a project, that we are working desperately to conclude, with lawyers and litigation and all these other issues, or do we rise above that and look at what the end goal is here and what is in the best interest of the people of the Northwest Territories, which is get the bridge built, limit the further costs and get it done within this current building season.

There will be plenty of time for review. There will be plenty of time later for finger pointing, for saying what didn’t happen, what should have happened, what might have happened, and if we do this in the future, what we will do differently and better.

At this point, it’s like being in the middle of a hockey game and you decide you are going to have a team scrum to figure out why things aren’t working when the game is going on, you’re going to lose. We can’t afford to do that. We have to keep our eye on the goal here, which is let’s get this bridge finished. It’s critical. Let’s not get involved in all of these issues of litigation and such when we’re in the middle of a

construction project that is 90 percent complete. Thank you.

All right. Well, I’ll give the Minister an analogy back. We are buying a $10 million iceberg. We are buying it in the winter, parking it out and now it’s melted in July and someone says, let’s mop it up and see if we can account for our losses. Are you kidding me? It is going to melt away and no one is going to be around. We’re going to have an empty bucket because there is nothing left to soak up. To say that the fundamental decision was to go forward and basically pay $10 million, is the Minister saying to the House today, and I’m going to be frank, has the government, has this Cabinet decided to ignore the obligation Ruskin should be on the hook for and chosen to reward them with a $10 million contract so they will fulfill their original obligation?

Madam Chair, what we have done is been what we’ve focused on from the start, is to complete the bridge across the Mackenzie River. That project is 90 percent complete. It is not a $10 million issue. It is a $200 million issue. It is one that we have worked hard and we all look back and say yes, if we were doing this over, we definitely would have a different genesis. It would definitely have a different evolution as it went forward, but that is the benefit of hindsight.

So now here we are. We’re still involved in this issue. We are focused, as we have been from the start, on managing our way through this so that impressive piece of infrastructure is open for public use in November. Thank you.

Madam Chair, this is not about hindsight. We are actually at the deciding point. I am not sure the Minister wants to talk about the project as a broader issue. I agree with everything he said when he spoke to it as a broad issue, is recap, revisit, analyze, et cetera, but the issue of the $10 million is a $10 million decision today. The decision should come with some deciding points. The deciding points are based on the fundamentals as I had asked, which was, has the government consciously chosen to ignore Ruskin’s responsibilities to fulfill its contract. That is the question.

Madam Chair, let me throw out a couple more four-year-old analogies and sayings about being penny wise, possibly, and pound foolish or forgetting the forest for the trees.

In this case, we made a very conscious decision, one that had all sorts of factors and variables, but let’s talk to the money. Ten million dollars today as opposed to another $9 million probably by next year as you remobilize and get everything done and, as well, an outstanding another $10 million or so in possible claims that we would have spent months in

litigation. We had claims. They had claims. We made the wise decision to overlook that particular part. Let’s move on to getting an agreement, which we have, to conclude this. These are the resources. These are the timelines we are aiming for, which is November. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on my list is Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up. I didn’t hear a response to my question in general comments, so I thought I’d follow up here on the Inuvik-Tuk Highway Project. I believe we committed $2.5 million at the last minute in the 2011-12 just before year end. I think the goal was to seek out gravel resources and I have heard that they had low success there. What was the result of that work? Did all those dollars get expended? Were the objectives achieved? How does this money relate to that money and the results? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Neudorf.

So we were successful. That means the bore holes were successful. How does that relate to the $2.5 million that we are now proposing again for this year? Was it $2.5 million or $3.5 million last year? We approved $2.5 million at the last minute. I thought maybe we’d had a million dollars already approved. Some clarity there. Thank you.

So the earlier reports of the unsuccessful 300 bore holes were false, just to clarify?

If I can just try, in plain language, the project was primarily defined as gravel of the nature you needed for the project and you were disappointed in the results. Is that right as far as that goes? Thank you.