Thanks, Madam Chair. I just wanted to follow up on some of the comments made by my colleague from Yellowknife Centre. I think I heard the deputy minister say that the Mackenzie Valley Highway is going to take another four years in environmental assessment before shovels can hit the ground again. That project has been in environmental assessment since 2013. 2013! Another four years, that means it will have been in environmental assessment for 11 years. Why is it in environmental assessment for 11 years? Because GNWT submitted a project that was ill-defined and has had to be redefined about five or six times. It's gobbling up an enormous amount of money and regulatory time. The thing was submitted prematurely. This is not the way to do big infrastructure projects.
Then I hear that the Slave Geological Province Road, from the deputy minister, is going to take six years through the environmental assessment. I think that is terribly optimistic. Again, we don't have any money to build it. I am astounded that we continue to chase these kinds of things without having solid projects that are shovel-ready. You shouldn't be taking something to environmental assessment unless you have the money to do it, quite frankly.
I don't know how you are going to convince the federal government to give 100 percent dollars for this stuff when it's still going to take years to get through EA, and so on. I just can't see how this is going to work. Can someone explain to me 11 years in EA for the Mackenzie Valley Highway? Why is it taking so long, and why do we keep changing the project? It's because we don't have money. We don't have a well-defined project. I would like to start with that. Thanks, Madam Chair.