Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to respond to some of the comments that I didn’t get a chance to talk to earlier and at the outset.

I want to state that I take offense to the Minister of Finance’s remarks that suggest that I am biased. I

certainly am not. I am required to hold this government accountable and that’s what I’m doing. I don’t feel that I am opposing or supporting any particular project except that it is in the best interests of the people of the Northwest Territories and I would ask that the Minister reconsider his statement.

It is important that the government be opposed if, it’s my belief, we’re not doing things in the right way, and that’s what I’m doing. There are times when we have to agree to disagree and that’s what you guys are doing, but I have yet to hear what the Minister mentioned the other day that’s going to give me comfort relative to the process and the timing questions.

I still don’t understand why we had no knowledge that this information or this request was coming forward several months ago. I believe firmly that there should have been some indication that this was where the project was going. I want to say that I appreciate that due diligence is required for this project and I think I would be even more upset if that wasn’t what was being asked for.

But again, my main concern is that we are being asked to approve something in very short order. We’re being asked to approve something, which in my mind is being thrust upon us and where we don’t have adequate information to make a reasoned decision and what I consider an adequate or a positive decision. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of course, if the Member has taken offense by any of my comments, my intent was not to offend her. I acknowledge the fact that I appreciate her support and she does ask tough questions. I mean, there’s no doubt about it, she’s good at it. So we owe her the response that she’s asked for and which is what we’re asking for. So I meant no offense to the Member. Whatever comment specifically offended her, I’d be happy to withdraw those. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for his comments. I think he probably well knows what comment it was that got me a little excited.

Again, I have to state that one of the things that I’d thought of the other day when we were in committee, we’ve received a huge amount of information from the Minister of Transportation during briefings and there’s been an awful lot of questions asked and the same questions were asked here today. But I’ve found the Minister saying the same thing over and over and over in an effort to convince me without providing me with new

information. Without adequately answering my questions is not convincing me and giving me comfort and that’s where I’m at.

So I accept the Minister’s offer to withdraw his remarks that I am biased. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the Members that feel we’re rushing into this, this project was initiated by the leadership in the Beaufort-Delta, by the Inuvialuit, the community of Tuktoyaktuk and the Town of Inuvik. The PDR work was done and it was initiated by the region. It was a regional effort to get the PDR work. That work was done by the communities that are up there. If we have a $150 million commitment from the federal government and it’s a priority of the government to build the highway between Tuk and Inuvik, what do Members want us to do when we have opportunity? Do they want us to sit on our hands and not take that opportunity, or do they want us to do something and move things forward?

This is an effort to make progress, to move forward, to get the work done so construction can start on the highway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk this coming winter. That’s where we’re at and that’s what we’re asking Members to support.

To Ms. Bisaro’s comment about answering questions, I’d be more than happy to answer any questions and we can go back and forth. Ask me a question and I’ll answer it and then we can get that done. Let’s get it done. I want you to have the comfort that I have answered every question that you have so that we can move forward. Let’s do that. This is the forum we can do that in, let’s do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we’re back to the horns of a dilemma where we’re being asked to answer questions that we can only answer once we’ve done the work. The detailed questions about permafrost, geotechnical work. The cost-benefit analysis has not been completed and you have our full commitment. We the government and the Minister have disclosed all of the information we have available and trying to make the case to justify getting the funds to in fact do the work to answer those very questions that the Member has raised so vigorously in the House here. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the Minister of Transportation, why did we not hear anything about this extraordinary cost last fall? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It was there but we weren’t in a position to make any decisions to move on it until we had advanced our discussions on the borrowing limit far enough where we were prepared to make a commitment. So that is how this whole process transpired, but the intent, if all went well to do the work, that information, as far as I’m aware… I’ll ask Mr. Aumond to clarify the detail. I’m of the understanding that it was there.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the explanation, but I have to say I’m afraid I can’t buy it. We are constantly, I shouldn’t say constantly, but very often as Members we are provided with information which cannot be shared with the public. We’re given information on a confidential basis to let us know what the government is doing or what the government is thinking about doing to get our opinion on whether or not we think the government should go forward, a yea or a nay or to provide some input. I find it really hard to believe that this government, knowing that this project was possibly going to be there, couldn’t have given Members a heads-up. That’s where I’m coming from. It goes to the difficulty that Regular Members and Cabinet have with communicating with each other. It’s a trust issue and I appreciate that, but that’s basically, I shouldn’t say that’s my only concern but that’s a lot of my concern. It underlines a lot of my concern that we are, as I think somebody’s already stated, very often presented with a fait accompli: Here it is, this is what we’re going to do, it’s really important that we do it right now, just trust us, everything will be okay. I can’t do that.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could just restate this sequence:

Without the comfort that we achieve on the borrowing limit, any discussion was academic. It was a moot point because without the money it wouldn’t have been advanced. We weren’t in a position to bring it forward for consideration until we reached a point in our discussion on the borrowing limit that we had that comfort. There is no attempt to mislead, as the Member’s indicating. It’s unfortunate that she’s got these trust issues, but clearly we’ve been trying to follow this process to the T. Once again I will ask Mr. Ramsay if he would want to supplement that.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a lot to add to that but we have the $150 million commitment from the federal government. We had the $1 million notional amount in the capital plan. We’re going to move forward with the project. I don’t think that was a secret to anybody. We wanted to move forward with the project. Being that it was tied to the borrowing limit, there were some constraints on the timing.

I just want to assure Ms. Bisaro and others that as this moves forward, we need to work together. You have my assurance that we will work together. I’ll get you the answers you need. The timing’s tight but this is a fluid process. It’s a huge project and we’d be fooling ourselves if we thought $1 million was going to cover our upfront costs on a potentially $250 million project. We knew it was going to cost us more, it’s just happening quickly. It may be happening a bit too quickly for some Members’ liking, but that’s the nature of this. It’s moving quickly, we need to act on it, and we need to get out in front of it and do the work. That’s what we’re trying to do.

I want to assure the Member that we will work together every step of the way and there will be many other junctures along the road here or points along the road where we will have to come back to committee and tell you exactly what we’re doing, and we intend to do that. We’re not trying to hide anything. We’re not trying to fast-track anything. This has been in play for awhile now.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Moving on to detail we have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although I’m not as excitable, perhaps, as my colleague Ms. Bisaro, I still do have my standards and I’d like to start by asking the Minister, who withdrew his remarks specifically for Ms. Bisaro alone, in relation to his statement that if I was, if this was Yellowknife I’d be supportive in putting a motion of non-support, which I have not expressed. My expression has been non-support of this $2.5 million for this year specifically, for this project. I’d happily look for a good way to spend those dollars,

in my mind. If he’d care to broaden his withdrawal of the remarks.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.