Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Continuing with the main theme here on the Deh Cho Bridge today, I have some questions for the Minister of Transportation. What is the expected time of completion or payback on the mortgage or bonds that we currently hold on the Deh Cho Bridge?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thirty-five years. Thank you.

My next question is concerning the tolls on the bridge and what effect those tolls will have on the repayment of that debt service.

Thank you. We’re anxious to begin growing our resources here in the Northwest Territories and in the Slave Geological Province. A lot of revenue will depend on truck traffic across the Deh Cho Bridge. So if we can grow our economy and get more trucks moving across that bridge, we’ll increase the revenue there. So again, it’s all dependent upon truck traffic that crosses that bridge. Thank you.

Thank you. As my colleagues have indicated some of the concerns with the high cost of the bridge, one of my questions is what has been removed from the bridge project that was in the original design of the bridge?

Thank you. I missed the beginning of the Member’s question. So perhaps you could allow him to re-ask that question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bouchard, could you speak into the mic?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll ask my question again. As I indicated, I was concerned with the high costs of the bridge, but my next concern was the items that have been removed from the bridge, from the original design. What items have been removed?

Thank you. Those items would predate my tenure as Minister of Transportation, but I’d be more than happy to get that for the Member. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My next question is the estimated cost of delivery of some products to the North and to Yellowknife and beyond. Does the Minister have any indication of the costs these tolls will have on commodities in the Northwest Territories?

Yes, years ago there were looks into that subject, but really it remains yet to be seen on what that impact would be. Some would argue that there wouldn’t be an impact, others would say there is and that’s been the debate since I’ve been a Member of this House since 2003. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We like to brag about our SFA program comparable to other jurisdictions. We have one of the best Student Financial Assistance programs, and as the Member alluded to, we are in the process of finalizing the recommendations that were brought to our attention.

I did meet with the standing committee to review those and we will be coming forward with those recommendations and making some changes to reflect on what we’ve heard from the students, from the teachers, from the parents and all of those individuals from the general public. So in order to make those changes, we need to come back to the standing committee and we will be doing that in the near future. Mahsi.

Thank you. I want to ask the department again in terms of trying to encourage our students to go on to college and university. What is the department doing to encourage more students to take on a challenge? Mahsi.

Mahsi. We do have various organizations that are working with us, whether it be the Mine Training Society, whether it be career development officers at the community level that do promote and encourage students, especially those individuals that are in Grade 10, Grade 11, Grade 12 that attend post-secondary as part of their tour orientation. So we do encourage those students to pursue post-secondary, and we work closely with the career officers and identify those individuals, what their interests are and work with them.

Our SFA is there for them, highlighting which area of interest and work with those individuals through their principals, through their teachers as well. So we’re doing what we can as a department working with our outreach workers in the community. So we’ll continue to pursue that. Mahsi.

I’d like to thank the Minister. For this fall, just recently there were some realities that came out in terms of facts because attendance was cited as a concern. What plans does the department have to address those concerns on attendance rates for this fall? Mahsi.

Mahsi. The attendance, we currently deal with that through high school and through the Student Achievement Initiative that we pursued. We do have a plan in place. We’re rolling out the implementation plans. That’s one of the areas of interest is attendance, deal with the attendance. But when it comes to post-secondary, the students are more mature and they need to be independent. So we can’t really monitor the post-secondary students per se, but we’re doing what we can with the schools, the high schools to continue monitoring. The results of absenteeism have become a challenge. So we work with the education authorities to deal with those matters. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. I’d like to follow up on the statement he made earlier today. I am pleased to hear of the delay in the application of the renewed rent scale for seniors housing, but I’d like some clarification from the Minister. It’s not really very clear to me. I’d like to ask the Minister what the purpose is of this delay and what is the purpose of the phase-in. Thank you.