Yeah, I think that's a big mistake, quite frankly, and I've said that before in this House, and I hope that future governments will listen to this as well. This government cannot have it both ways. You cannot trigger an EA for the Slave Geological Province or Lockhart all-season road while it's in a regional study. What's the point of doing a regional study? Tlicho government, others have asked for the regional study so that we don't make irrevocable mistakes so why trigger an EA while the regional study's going on? That would be just ridiculous and, quite frankly, contrary to good project management, good environmental management, sound public policy. And I've said this before in the House, if this government ends up triggering an EA while the regional study is on, that's really bad. I can't emphasize that enough. Why do the regional study? So, yeah, I just don't agree with this, quite frankly, and especially at a time where the caribou herds -- the Bathurst caribou herd has not recovered. There's no evidence whatsoever of recovery in the last four years I've been here; it's gotten worse. So I don't know why we would continue to push this when the caribou herd is in crisis while a regional study is going on. This is just bad public policy, bad spending. Benefits don't stay here. I just don't understand why we do this, Madam Chair. This is wrong.
Now, I do want to say a couple of other things, and I think I've also heard it said in this House, if there's one project on this list this government should pursue it's the Mackenzie Valley Highway. It actually connects communities. It's for the benefit of communities. This other stuff, a lot of this is not for the benefit of communities, some of this stuff. So if you're going to do the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the problem is this has been a project that is in environmental assessment now for ten years because we submitted it way too early before we even had money. So you're gobbling -- we've been gobbling up regulatory time. The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review board, they almost cancelled the environmental assessment at one point because our government wouldn't submit necessary information. Why trigger an EA on something when you're not ready to do it? And that's what you're going to do with the Slave Geological Province application as well. You're going to trigger an EA before it's even ready and you're going to gobble up, waste taxpayers' money on it. It's going to turn into a boondoggle. And I think the same thing will happen with Taltson. I have no doubt if the current attitudes continue to prevail here.
So my advice is you concentrate on one project. That's what I've heard informally from the federal contacts that I have. Those guys, they just can't figure out what they want to do. They keep coming after us for all kinds of crazy things. If they had one project and they brought it to us with a real plan, we could probably work with that. This other stuff, crazy. Why do it? So that's my advice to the next Assembly, concentrate on one big infrastructure project and make it the Mackenzie Valley Highway and finish it. And do it in small enough chunks that communities will actually benefit from it. Don't try to do it all at the same time and gobble up ten years of an EA before a board and waste taxpayers' money. Get the money in place and do it right.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I think that's probably all I have to say. It sounds like a lecture and quite frankly it is because I'm fed up after eight years of sitting here wasting taxpayers' money on these boondoggle projects. Thank you.
