Thank you, Madam Chair. The $105.7 million carry-over for infrastructure projects that had been approved and lapsed in the 2011-2012 period, certainly we see the benefits in our communities. Certainly, the Minister has my support for these projects. They’re worthwhile. They’re beneficial to my people in the region. We look forward to the completion of them. I’m not too sure how much I want to go into the detail of the planning and how we get these projects to completion, but it does show the federal government influence in our budget when they gave the money to us to get some of these project on the way.
The investment in the energy priorities and investment plan, I certainly hope that – again I will reiterate my mantra – the Minister needs to look beyond the southern portion of the region and look further north of Simpson, or look to see where these type of energy initiatives can be put into our government facilities, and make it so schools like
Fort Good Hope, which was recently built, would have been ideal to put a wood pellet in there. However, because of transportation or other issues, it didn’t make it happen. We’re looking at Norman Wells at some of the facilities that could be used as wood pellet boiler systems in our communities needs to be looked at. There are also other alternative energy plans, like the hydro coming to our region. I’m looking forward to it. I think over the years I’ve dealt with this issue and I continue to encourage this government to put in some real dollars, other than in studies and studies and studies, put them into action in the Sahtu.
The Minister of Transportation’s completion of the bridge. I know one time, it was to build it I think cost about $6 million at one time in the ’50s, and that was too much money for us. Today now we’re talking over $200 million. It’s going to be that. I know that. We are sort of caught between a rock and a hard place on this one here. I know the department is working with the contractors to get it fixed on time and on budget. That was their mantra. Things like that sometimes don’t quite go the way we want because of unforeseen circumstances. But we’re almost done. We just need to pull it over and get it done.
There are certain questions. From the day of its conception, we had questions, to the way that it actually got off the ground. We had questions. The Minister across the aisle here was one of the biggest advocates on these questions to the bridge. Now the Minister is advocating and wants to get the bridge done. There are other bigger projects that we need to tackle in the Northwest Territories. Bigger ones than this, like the Mackenzie Valley Highway. When you put things in perspective on this bridge and other projects, this is a good hard learning lesson for us. When you compare this to the Mackenzie Valley Highway, this bridge is peanuts, when you want to put in a billion dollar project like the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Members are asking very good questions of us so we can go forward on some of these projects.
I think that it was foretold that this bridge would be over a $200 million project. Sure enough it is. That prophecy has come true. But we also want to get this bridge done and get it built. We have some questions on that and I hope we ask more about them. That doesn’t stop us. I support the work that needs to get done on the Inuvik-Tuk road, and also get that project done. We can use some of the lessons we have learned from the Deh Cho Bridge for the Inuvik-Tuk road, and we need to have some more discussions.
Those are my comments to the supplementary estimates for 2012-13. Thank you.