Question 567-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On The Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge Project  Mr. Speaker, we do have a design sign-off on all components of the bridge project. As I indicated yesterday, we have also had our own independent design engineers, our experts, review the design. They all approve it. What the Auditor General is looking for is one signature to app

Question 567-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On The Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge Project  Thank you. My job is to get the bridge built, to steer it to a final product. It’s very difficult if I have to try to steer it while looking in the rear-view mirror all the time. Mr. Speaker, I’d have to respond to the Member by stating that the design and the amendment to the

Question 568-16(5): Completion Of Highway No. 6  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I commend the Member for raising the issue on a consistent basis to bring attention to the need for improvement to our infrastructure, and in particular Highway No. 6. We have been working very hard with the Member and the Member’s community to move the pr

Question 568-16(5): Completion Of Highway No. 6  Thank you. As we come to the end of the season and the commitment this coming year, we need to focus on the additional stretch of road on Highway No. 6. Highway No. 6 is 90 kilometres long. It’s going to take further investment and we recognize it’s going to be difficult to com

Question 568-16(5): Completion Of Highway No. 6  Thank you. I can assure the Member that the $15 million requirement is in the needs assessment, the five-year needs assessment. It will be the decision of the next government to ensure that these dollars are indentified and invested into that stretch of road. I can’t commit that

Question 568-16(5): Completion Of Highway No. 6  Certainly, Mr. Speaker, it’s our practice to work with communities and in some cases we’ve been able to combine efforts and lower the cost of chipsealing. In some cases we’ve actually stepped in and provided some of the technical expertise that the community was lacking. We’d cer

Question 576-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On The Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge Project  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve put together a team of experts from across the country, I should say across the world, that are very experienced, probably the best in their field and they’ve put together a risk matrix that identifies all the potential challenges that are out ther

Question 576-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On The Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge Project  The Auditor General identified the risk matrix as being weak. It didn’t cover some areas that we consider as low. There’s also been concern from the Auditor General that the wording itself was too general when we used the best efforts or best practices and those types of terms, s

Question 576-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On The Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge Project  Thank you. I’m glad the Member pointed out risks. Mr. Speaker, this is the risk of asking for an Auditor General operational audit a few days after we assume the project completely in the responsibility of the government. The Auditor General did a lot of this work as we were putt

Question 576-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On The Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge Project  Mr. Speaker, if there was any potential loss of revenue due to the contract going past the completion date, we would seek recovery on that. Thank you.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery (Reversion)  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also wanted to recognize Margaret Leishman. This is her second visit here during this session and I’d like to welcome her here. Thank you.

Minister’s Statement 120-16(5): Auditor General’s Report  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Investing in infrastructure to improve access to communities is a key priority of the Government of the Northwest Territories. When the Deh Cho Bridge is complete, it will benefit NWT residents by providing a safe, reliable all-weather link from the South

Question 562-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s an expected comment, I guess, from this MLA that hasn’t agreed with anything that we’ve provided him. Mr. Speaker, on this occasion there has been a number of approvals to the design. It has the piers which have been signed off by a designer. We had t

Question 562-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge  A perfect example, by the comments made, that he doesn’t agree with anything that we’ve provided him. We have provided numerous briefings and I’ve just indicated to him that this has been signed off by three different engineers, it has been reviewed by our team, some world-class

Question 562-16(5): Auditor General’s Report On Special Audit Of The Deh Cho Bridge  Mr. Speaker, the Member should know by now where the budget is. He approved portions of it in the last couple of budgets. The toll collection portion was approved over the last two budget years. It is a separate issue. It is a separate budget. It is kept separate because it is no