Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of comments here. You know, you look at the amount of money in this supplementary appropriation and it’s very large, $105 million, almost $106 million, and it seems huge. I have to echo the comments of one of my colleagues earlier, who stated that we have in the last couple of previous years had a huge amount of infrastructure projects throughout the two fiscal years and we have been taking advantage of the federal dollars that have been available, and I fully support that. I did support it and I continue to support it. Over the years our carry-over for infrastructure has averaged around 35 percent and that goes back some 10 or 11 years, I believe. It’s interesting to me to note that in a year when we did probably two or three times as many infrastructure projects as we normally do, we still are carrying over 35 percent of our infrastructure projects from last year to this year. In a year when we had such a huge number of projects, and large projects, that’s pretty good, in my mind.
I caution looking at this total appropriation without considering that we have had an extremely ambitious schedule for two years running, and we’re kind of getting back to a normal level of activity, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it. I think that the carry-overs that are in this budget are reasonable. I would encourage the department from now on, however, to try to bring our carry-over amounts down to the lowest percentage possible. They have been going down over the last few years, but continue the downward trend is my advice to you, and try to get to the point where we are able to accomplish a lot more than just 65 percent of our projects in any one year.
I wanted to comment on the new items that are in this appropriation. There are two projects which are doing positive things for our energy use and energy costs. Those are a good way to go. Both of these will be decreasing costs. One is an electrical issue, the other is biomass. I support both of these projects. It’s not a huge amount of money, yet almost $1 million, but it’s well worth it, in my mind, and I do support those.
I do have some problems with the other two million dollar items that are here. I spoke yesterday about the bridge and I won’t ask a lot of questions because I don’t think there are any answers really that we haven’t heard already. I am concerned that this project continues to cost us money. I really fervently hope that we are not going to get another supplementary appropriation asking for more money for the bridge. I believe in the project but I also believe that the project was not started properly in the first place, and we’ve been trying to play catch-up on the project from its inception. The previous Assembly inherited the project. This Assembly has now inherited the project. Every one of us has been in the situation where we are now, where it’s like again you’re coming for money and we have very little opportunity to influence it except to move to delete the expenditure. I’m not willing to do that.
I have to say that I’m thoroughly looking forward to the full investigation from start to finish of the whole project. The Transportation Minister said yesterday that that’s still on the books. I’m very glad to hear that. I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned here. I think some of them have already been learned, and the development of our P3 policy, I believe is a really good step forward and it should save us from some of the huge mistakes we made on the bridge project, if we go into P3 projects in the future.
I do have concerns with the Inuvik-Tuk highway project. I expressed some of those in February when we approved the first $2.5 million. I have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and this little niggling thought in the back of my head which says here we go, we’re going into another bridge
project here. I again fervently hope that is not the case, but there is so little information for us as Members to deal with here. We are almost being told, just trust us, we know what we’re doing. Just give us another $2.5 million and it will be fine. I appreciate we have to do advance work. I feel better about this appropriation than I did about the previous one, because we had so little notice on the previous one. At least we knew that this one was coming. The rationale is still the same. I recognize that we have to do advance work, we have to do investigative work to determine the scope of the project. I sure hope we get full detail, full disclosure of the project when it comes back for more money, and for significantly more money, if it’s going to go ahead. I don’t feel at this point in time we really know what we’re getting ourselves into, and as I think Mr. Bouchard stated, I am really concerned about the commitment on the part of the federal government. I am willing to support the project but I am not willing to support it for 50 cent dollars, because it’s my belief that the federal government should be putting money into new highways, not provincial and territorial governments.
That said, I will somewhat grudgingly approve this appropriation, but I did feel that I needed to express my concerns.