Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The purpose of the delay was we listened to what committee had to say, their desire to have those out there that have paid zero for so many years adjust to have them start paying rent now. So we listened to what committee had to say and some Members had to say. We listened to some of the comments from the NWT Seniors’ Society. Thank you.

Thank you and thanks to the Minister for that clarification. So I have to then ask the Minister if he has been listening to the concerns of the NWT Seniors’ Society and been listening to the concerns of Members, it should be no surprise to him that the Seniors’ Society in particular and Members have supported this.

The Seniors’ Society feels that they have not been adequately consulted. I see nothing in the statement and I heard nothing in the Minister’s answer that suggests that there’s going to be any consultation with seniors in this two-month period. So I’d like to ask the Minister what the Housing Corporation is going to use the two months

between now and September 1

st for. Are they going

to use it for consultation or are they going to use it for any specific purpose? Thank you.

Thank you. We’re going to use that two months to give them an opportunity to prepare for a change in their rent come September 1

st . We’re also going to use it as

an opportunity, as I responded before, to work with a lot of seniors that are in public housing and give them an indication of what their rent will be and what they can expect to pay in the future.

Thanks to the Minister. Those goals are laudable. I appreciate what the Housing Corporation is planning on doing. There has been a specific request from the NWT Seniors’ Society for consultation with them and with other seniors, and I believe that I know at least some Members have suggested to the Minister that these two months from now to the implementation on September 1

st, should be used to do some consultation and also to do some analysis of the impact on seniors. Why will the Minister not use these next two months or two and a half months to do that?

We know what the impact is going to be on the seniors. I have no problem in the next couple of months of sitting down with the NWT Seniors’ Society and getting some input from them. We know what the impact is going to be on the seniors. The seniors know what the impact is going to be on themselves. It’s going to be $35 a month, half of what we had originally intended to charge, come July 1

st and next year it’s

going to be $70 a month. If there’s an opportunity to meet with the seniors, I have no issue in sitting down and having a discussion with them. As far as an official consultation where we go out across the land, we’ve already done that. It’s going to cost us close to $60,000. That’s money that we can best use putting back into our units.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I hear that the Minister is willing to meet with the seniors. I would hope that he will live up to that commitment. I’d like to, I guess, ask the Minister: Will he take some initiative to contact the NWT Seniors’ Society?

If there are folks from the NWT Seniors’ Society who are listening to this broadcast, I would like the opportunity to come and meet with you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll be speaking again, like some of my colleagues have on the Deh Cho Bridge. Earlier today we heard from the Minister himself who said it’s not going to cost us more money. I guess I’m really questioning why we’re really here. It is costing us more money. We’ve heard that there’s going to be a supplemental coming and I think the people of the Northwest Territories are feeling this new ask feels more like a ransom than the completion of a project, and I think the people are sick of it. Really what we have here is a new negotiated deal with a negotiated price with an agreement-in-principle icing coating. I’m going to ask the Minister right here: I’m a little bit confused in the legality of what is really binding moving forward, so can the Minister indicate to me which deal this government is bound to at this moment in time?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re bound to getting this project completed by November. We’re bound to protecting the public purse. We’ve negotiated a settlement to all the outstanding claims. That’s what we’re bound to. We’re trying to move forward. There’s no sense in fighting with the contractor. We need to move forward and put our differences behind us and get the project complete by November. That’s what we’re bound to.

I’m not sure if the word is legally binding or legally bound. It’s a bit confusing. The reason I’m asking that first question is that legally binding, when we first negotiated this price with Ruskin, there was obviously holdbacks involved. These are legal parts of large-scale projects. Anyone who builds houses or any type of infrastructure knows that. What’s happening now with these holdbacks? Are these being leveraged, and if not, why not?

When the contract was originally done with Ruskin – that again predates my time here as Minister of Transportation – there are holdbacks on the construction in that contract and I believe that is industry standard at about 5 percent. That is the current practice and that will continue to be the practice.

I think we’re going down the rabbit hole somewhere but really, quite frankly, we don’t know whether something is legally bound or binding, we don’t know whether these holdbacks are going to be applied to the so-called debt, so I’m going to ask my third question to this which is: What does it take to terminate a contract or contractor if

they’re not fulfilling their negotiated price that they signed with ink with the GNWT?

I’m not a lawyer and that’s a hypothetical question.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I sense some written questions coming down the pipeline. I appreciate my last opportunity to ask some questions. You heard from this side of the House, you heard will the bleeding stop? Can you assure us, we heard responses, expectation it will be open, we can complete it, and always there could be circumstances. I’m going to make this a very simple question to the Minister. Can the Minister guarantee to the people of the Northwest Territories that this will be the final supplement asked by this government to complete the Deh Cho Bridge?

I could never guarantee that. What I can guarantee is we’re doing our utmost to ensure that that bridge is completed in November, that we’re protecting the public purse and we’re moving this forward and we’re not looking back.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Transportation’s reply to one of my questions was that it wasn’t going to cost any more money. I think my colleague Mr. Dolynny tried to bring up that issue a little more clearly, but we didn’t get any clear answer. My next question for the Minister of Transportation is: What’s the point of having a negotiated contract when we’re asking for somewhere between $7.2 million and $9.5 million more, and explain to maybe the House why that isn’t actually costing more money, because it sure sounds like real money and new money to the taxpayer?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In negotiating a way forward, and negotiating with Ruskin on the completion of the Deh Cho Bridge, I mentioned this earlier in response to another question, if we don’t open the bridge in November, it’s an immediate $9 million hit to the Government of the Northwest Territories. What we’ve done is negotiated our way out of a number of construction claims on the project that run in the millions of dollars, somewhere probably around $10 million. This way we’re going to move forward. Yes, it is

going to cost us some more money, but we’re getting budget certainty and schedule certainty, and we know what we need to get the project done. That’s the most important thing, is that we’re protecting the public purse. This is the best decision, best course of action the government can take on the project at this date.

I’m trying to get a sense of who is actually in the driver’s seat of this particular problem. The Minister has just said if we don’t meet the fall deadline, it’s going to cost us $9 million. He says we have to pay potentially up to $10 million to make sure we comply. I’m confused that the negotiated contract isn’t being implemented. Did Ruskin agree, if we paid more money, they would comply with the original direction provided by Associated Engineers to comply with the fall deadline, again, if we paid more money?