Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today as this is formally the second time we have heard from the Department of Transportation on a shared cost estimate proposal with the federal government on the northern portion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway system. It appears, once again, that we have been given a glass-half-empty program that appears now to have been formally fast-tracked to the feds for review.
I have said on more than one occasion in this House that I support this project only if the math was sound and a full risk matrix was on the table. It is clear that the project glass is, again, half empty. Questions still remain unanswered, yet it appears that the department is hastily, once again, taking an untested number to the federal government for a decision on cost-sharing and playing guesswork with the public purse.
Can the Minister of Transportation indicate how certain the department can be with only 85 percent of the design work for the highway being completed? What contingencies does the department have to address the unknown variables for the remaining 15 percent of the design/build and the cost estimate that was given recently to the federal government?