Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of comments here. I’ll start where Mr. Dolynny left off with the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the road from Inuvik to Tuk. I, too, am concerned. I appreciate that the Minister has advised that we haven’t got a decision yet, but we also don’t yet know the total cost of the project. Sometimes I feel that we are heading pell-mell down a road without considering what’s at the end of the road when we get there, and I just want to say that I am extremely cautious about this project. Once bitten, twice shy. And the Deh Cho Bridge, having gone through the Deh Cho Bridge Project, it certainly puts a different spin and view on what I see in terms of projects and the large costs involved, so I will be exercising caution. I appreciate no decision has been made, but I encourage the department to recognize that
there are a lot of unanswered questions on the part of Members and I think probably on the part of the department itself. Let’s just make sure we know what we’re getting ourselves into.
The Minister talked about a net decrease in his opening comments, a net decrease of $3.4 million to the budget from the previous year’s budget. That sounds great. There is a reduction in some of the costs with taking the ferry out of service and so on, and not having an ice road to build across the river anymore. I think we have to remember that we are reducing the Transportation budget, but we are increasing the budget in Finance by $8 million to deal with the interest on the Deh Cho Bridge loans. Now that the bridge is open and operating, we are starting to pay interest on those loans that we have. So we can’t lose sight of the fact that one department has gone down but another one has gone up significantly.
I had a bit of a concern with the fee increases. I’m sort of struggling with that. The Minister mentioned that adjustments to bring fees up to date, with the majority of fee increases ranging from 15 to 20 percent. I can appreciate that we probably were a little behind with our fee increases. We probably haven’t brought them up to date for a number of years, but I saw the 15 and 20 percent and thought, as a consumer, I’m not all that happy to have an increase of 15 to 20 percent. Even 5 percent these days is enough, thank you very much. From what I understand, some increases may be as high as 30 percent. I certainly hope the department will, in the future, manage to keep fees closer to sort of I guess annual increments, if that’s necessary, or say every two years or so, so that we’re not seeing a big, healthy dose of increased fees at any one time.
The Minister mentioned the opening of the Deh Cho Bridge. I was lucky enough to be able to be there that day. Although it was extremely cold, it was a really exciting day. I know I shared the Minister’s excitement. It certainly was an historic event for me and I truly enjoyed the opportunity to be part of it. So thanks to the Minister and the department for that. Also, thank you for actually getting the bridge open. That was great. It was a long time coming, but it was really good that it was finally done.
The Minister talked a lot about improving economic development opportunities in his opening remarks. He talked about the need for transportation infrastructure, and I agree. We can’t have mines without roads to service those mines, but I am a little struck by the fact that we’re not talking at all about the environment and sustaining the environment, and tempering our push for economic opportunities in transportation infrastructure with making sure that we are considering the environment at the same time. This government, in my mind, has a bit too much focus and emphasis on economic opportunities, to the detriment of our
environment and our land and water. I put that forward as just a mention.
I did forget to mention that Mr. Bromley, unfortunately, isn’t feeling well, but he asked me to bring forward this particular concern of his. I believe it’s on the revenue page in the budget where we have, according to the Minister’s comments, increased our fees, but we don’t see a corresponding increase in revenue. I look at road licensing and safety fees and they’ve gone down to $144,000 from $589,000 in 2012-13. Those two statements, the numbers in the book and the statement by the Minister don’t jive, so he and I would appreciate an explanation when we get to that point. Even if we look at total revenue, we’ve gone from $9.6 million to $12.9 million, which is about $3.3 million. We are increasing our revenue through tolls of $4 million, I think was in the Minister’s opening comments. Again, it doesn’t really jive if we are increasing our licensing and other fees and we’re not really increasing our revenue from what the numbers say.
That’s all I had, Madam Chair. Thank you.
