Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will discuss some of these issues as well. It is a big concern to me the amount of $105 million in carry-overs from previous year. That is a large amount of money to be not putting out into the territory, especially when the economy of the Northwest Territories has been slow.
I understand that the infrastructure projects have been quite large over the last few years. This year has been a smaller one, so I am really looking forward to seeing those dollars hit the ground in the Northwest Territories and go to helping the economy of the Northwest Territories. I hope that we maximize the amount of northern content in those contracts and make sure that the people of the North get to receive that money as far as employment, as far as contracts, and that we retain most of that work in the North so that we can basically use our economic spinners and make sure that money multiplies three or four times over and we can get a money multiplier there.
I definitely am encouraged to see the $850,000 on biomass and the electric boiler system in Fort Smith. Mr. Bromley indicated that it is an innovative way of the government spending their money. I think we’re going to get some efficiency there.
The $10 million for the Transportation and the Deh Cho Bridge is obviously a difficult one. Some Members have already expressed their concerns
about this expenditure and the ongoing expenditure. It’s an issue, as a new MLA, we have inherited from the former Legislative Assembly and the project is not a pretty one. The public is definitely frustrated with this project. The difficulty is, we are in a very difficult position. We could sit here and argue and fight with the contractor, and indications are that we could win some battles and we would lose some battles, but the difficulty is that it would take time, and the more time that we have, the longer increased costs we have.
We have some additional costs of running the ferry, additional costs of running the ice road, additional management fees, so those just about outweigh the total amount of the additional cost of the bridge. So it is one of those things, do we pick a fight just to pick a fight, or do we pick a fight that we think we can win?
I think the department has looked at those options. Right now the only option we have is to hopefully just get this project done. It has already been a fiasco. The public’s impression of this project is not going to be improved if we can sit here and say we are able to save $10 million this year, but we battled and we fought for another year or six months and it ended up costing us another $9 million or $10 million. Who knows how many more millions of dollars?
So right now I support the $10 million. Let’s get it done. Let’s move on, hopefully from this project, and start collecting tolls, start paying off the debt on this bridge. Hopefully, in 25 or 35 years we will be happy that this bridge was created.
The final issue is the Department of Transportation for the Tuk-Inuvik highway. I support the concept of the Tuk to Inuvik highway. I would like to see, after this assessment is completed, the terms of reference for the development of the project from this point forward. How much is it going to cost us? Do we have an agreement with the federal government? Right now I do believe it’s 75/25 for the federal government to be putting 75 percent in, us 25 percent. Are they committed if the project goes over budget?
Obviously, talking about the Deh Cho Bridge, we can assume that sometimes projects will go over budget. It would be difficult if this project is going to go over the estimated amount and we end up having to do a 50/50 deal. I don’t think we can afford that. Again, I think before we get too far into the process and committing too many dollars, we need to assess where the project is at. I definitely right now support the concept. I think it’s going to provide economy into the region that is suffering. It also expands the development of the North to build northern roads. It’s a link to oil and gas. It is also a link to tying our North together from north to south.
Eventually we are going to be asked to consider the Mackenzie Valley Highway as well. This is one link,
and this is one link that the federal government has, for some reason, a strong interest in right now. I think we should be supporting it for now, but we definitely need to work out some of the details and some of the logistics of the costs to the total project, lay them down now so that we know exactly what we are getting into. Those are all my comments for now, Mr. Chair.