Thank you, Madam Speaker. Your committee has been considering Bill 30, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, and I would like to report progress. Madam Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

Along with the comments my colleague just made, I guess, we had the opportunity to meet with NTCL today, and they were obviously concerned about this volume, as well, the fact that I think there are some deficiencies in the marine industry that the Department of Transportation will be looking at and investing money into as opposed to doing it all on highways. Obviously, that’s a concern for them as a company that’s committed to marine, and they see the government investing in highways and roads, basically, supporting the diminishing amount of their market, so I guess they definitely had some concerns there. I’m just wondering if the department is looking forward to some of those discussions with marine companies. We’ve obviously brought up the issue of dredging, but there are also issues of docking and dock maintenance in several of the communities in order to get the goods and services into the communities. If I can get some comments from the department on that.

That’s it, Mr. Chair. I think we’ve discussed most of the issues tied to the acceleration and our concerns there.

I had a question about, obviously, the Tuk to Inuvik highway, and this being the budget after we’re expecting an accelerated amount. What is the department’s consideration if the estimated or the projected volume of road we’re supposed to complete isn’t done? Would this money be deleted from the budget or would it just be a carryover to the following year? I’m just wondering about the scheduling. We’re talking about an accelerated schedule. If we don’t meet those accelerated dates, what does that do to this budget? That would be basically the third year, right?

That’s good. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Madam…Mr. Chair. I had it all day yesterday; you can get it today.

I guess the concerns are that we continue to hear a lot of things from contractors and from individuals of the opportunities that are there. I guess these anticipated numbers that we were given when we first got the proposal and the numbers, have we met any of the expectations? They predicted they were going to be hiring 90 percent contractors and 90 percent Northerners. Were there any indicators like that and agreements in place?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, as we go through this project, one of the concerns when we first started when we were looking to approval was procurement of northern

contractors. Has the department kept up with reporting of how many northern contractors are benefiting from the project, and can we get any of that type of information to date?

I guess going forward with this project, obviously, now it seems like we’re accelerating the funds anyway. Maybe the project is going to be close to the anticipated schedule, but I mean, we’re actually accelerating the payment and the funds. Have we talked to the federal government about trying to accelerate payments and will our commitment and the federal government’s commitment match up as far as accelerating now?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, obviously, had some questions about the highway, the Tuk to Inuvik highway, and the expenditures there. I guess we should be celebrating the fact that we’re going to look to accelerate this project and move forward. It sounds like the project could be moved forward and get done earlier than expected. I’m assuming with that we’re on budget, as well, but the difficulty comes in the fact that we’re asked to approve these budgets, and the Tuk to Inuvik highway was one of those dilemmas.

As a Member from the south, is that a project that we would support or not support? We ended up supporting the project because we knew there was going to be economic benefit to the region, which all indications are that the economic opportunities there were limited. There are a lot of people unemployed, and this was going to provide an opportunity for those people. Now that we’re in the midst of the project, now we get the department coming to us and saying, well, we just need to get the job done, the contractor agrees that we can move it forward and get it done. Now we’re wiping away those issues of economic development, the training, the implications of how this project will affect the Beaufort-Delta, and not only the individuals but the companies that are involved.

I guess my concerns are the fact that yes, I’m happy to hear that, but on the other hand, it seems like when we do these projects it’s just “let’s get it done.” We’re seeing some of that dilemma in big contracts, even construction of our hospital in Hay River. It’s a big contract. It seems like we just need to get it done. We have a contractor that seems to push our subcontractors, some of the local and northern contractors, to go let’s just get it done. We need to get this done. You need to put more money to it. We have a schedule but now we need you to ramp it up because we want to get done early and we want to maximize our potential and maybe even take on more profit. My concerns are that we are accelerating this not to the benefit of the Northwest Territories but the benefit of just getting it done and the benefit may be potentially to the contractors.