Thank you, Madam Chair. We are faced now with the ultimate go/no go scenario. We knew that was going to happen later today. It’s unfortunate that we are late in the evening now, after a very glorious day in terms of signing of devolution and now we are doing a second major milestone here for the 17th Assembly all within eight
hours, so it’s quite a lot to take in for a lot of us. I know many of us are tired and I appreciate everyone here who has some input into this project.
I liken this to no different than if I was a CEO of a company and I had a board of directors who were pitching a project. I would make sure that I would do my due diligence before, as a CEO or Member of this House, offering my blessing, I guess, of a project of this magnitude, given the fact that we’re dealing with still some very unknown variables out there.
I just want to put in a little bit of an earmark of the fact that we have heard today, time and time again, that we are only at 85 percent of the design build, that 15 percent of this highway is still with a question mark. If I was a CEO of a company with a board of directors giving me a pitch of a project of this magnitude, as CEO I would say, really I have to make a decision with a 15 percent variable in it. It’s a lot of faith that you’re putting into that person to have to make a decision with a lot of, I guess, so-called unknown variables to move forward with.
We have also been led to believe from the get-go of this project of the federal commitment to the project, and we are very thankful for that. We continue hearing 75/25 throughout the whole project. That was echoed loud and clear, not only from the Minister of Finance, but the Minister of Transportation, that we would not proceed until there was a definite 75/25 split. We found out from today if we add the pre-work, and if my calculations are correct, we are in it for 35.7 percent given the fact that we have to add the pre-work in there and
the fed’s commitment at 64.3 percent. It’s very clear that we are quite a bit different from this so-called 75/25. That definitely translates… That 10 percent variance or 10.7 variance truly means that we have an extra $33.3 million that we are actually holding the bag on that changed in a matter of hours. This 75/25 changed within hours of a $30 million more commitment to the taxpayer on this project.
What really concerns me, as someone who has done major construction building in my past, that when we look at a project of this magnitude, we tend to or government tends to layer components out of the whole asset or total asset cost of a project. For example, if we’re doing work on a building or whatever, remediation work or tear-down work, doesn’t necessarily add to a total project cost at which time the total cost then becomes minimized or marginalized to which it should be.
I’m saying that because we can’t forget about all of work that went into this project. There was $12 million worth of work. We are led to believe that that $12 million of due diligence is just, as the department indicates, due diligence. It’s totally unfortunate that we can’t capitalize that as a whole asset of this whole project. I say that with conviction, because if we don’t capitalize this, we have many hundreds of kilometres of road left to build. If every hundred kilometre segment of this road is out of the same pretence of due diligence work that is 100 percent on the taxpayers’ shoulders and we can’t capitalize that and we can’t do any type of cost sharing with the federal government, those millions of dollars will add up over time. We have I would say probably over another thousand kilometres-plus of road to construct and I’m very concerned.
I can tell you, if I add it all up, this government has made it extremely, extremely hard to support this. They should have made it easier to support it.
As I said earlier, I applaud the work of the people up in the Beaufort-Delta. I applaud the work of the IRC. I applaud them. They are very well organized. They have done their homework. They have lobbied very well. They have bent the ear of the federal counterparts. They deserve our admiration for being a workhorse towards this project. I say that with conviction. I can’t say the same for this government.
We had an opportunity to lead by example, to work in conjunction, in partnership. We keep hearing this all the time, to work in partners. We did not do our job, in my humble opinion. We could have done a better job. We could have done a better job communicating this project all the way through. We did not need to leave to the 11th hour, information
that the public should have had access to, as we heard from some of my colleagues, so that we could do a proper, informed decision. For that I’m
very disappointed; very, very disappointed. This government had the means, had the knowledge and had the willpower. They chose not to or they were very selective to what was given or what was not given.
That actually works against the consensus style of government. By not sharing and not coming forward with information on a timely basis, a divide occurs amongst the membership in all aspects of this House. There was no need to pit Member versus Member. There was no need to pit rural and remote and urban. There was no need for that. But by not doing what I consider the job of government, that’s exactly what we did. We pitted each other on this project and we didn’t need to do that at all.
I hope that this project has taught us something. I say “we” because I’m part of it. I hope this project taught us humility. I hope this project taught us how not to do things the next time a large project comes on the table, and I’m hoping I’m here for that. Causing this divide amongst us was very unfortunate. I don’t believe it was our finest hour in politics. I don’t believe it was our finest hour in our large capital projects that this government has undertaken over the years that it has.
As I said earlier, I supported this project from the get-go. I questioned its math. All I asked was the math be transparent. I asked for the risk to be put on the table. I stand by that conviction as I do today, as I did yesterday, and as I did almost 16 months ago as a Member coming into this Assembly.
I will be supporting this project, but I can tell you this, I hope government is listening, I hope the department is listening, I hope the Ministers are listening. I know the Premier is listening because he’s looking at me. Thank you, that’s all I’m asking. So thank you very much, committee. Thank you very much Members. Thank you to the people up in the gallery here from Inuvialuit. We can do better next time, folks. Thank you.