Bob Bromley

We know that the Minister of Transportation has said this project would not proceed if there was anything less than 75 percent. Where does that put us?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up on a few of the comments and questions we’ve heard here. The first is the assumption that had been made. I don’t think many assumptions are being made, but we do have a number of risks out there, and the assumption is that some of them will prove to be real.

I’d just like to know, in the number of projects that the Minister is familiar with of this nature – and I know, as the Minister said, we’ve never done a project of this magnitude – but where we have an 85 percent design going into it, how many of them has he known the cost to go down on?

Thank you. I believe my colleagues corrected me there. It was $40 million. So that will be happening this fiscal year, we will get a transfer of $40 million from the federal government for this cost. Is that correct? Thank you.

I don’t think there will be a big crowd there. In fact, the economic analysis done by this government has shown that because of the efficiency of the road, we will lose something in the order of 1,500 or 1,600 person years of employment, which is typical of the oil and gas industry. It’s a very low ratio of person jobs per invest, $1 million investment, and the loss will be very large here according to our studies. So the record we have is $7 million. We’re going to go find the gravel. We didn’t. The government came back, we need another $5 million, we got a few weeks left in the fiscal year...

The Minister is twisting my words again, but he’s getting pretty good at that. Obviously, I would say that the amount is well over $100 million already. We know that, having already spent $11 million or $12 million on this, so the Minister is already low-balling it here. But I guess I would ask how the hydro development is going to help lower costs for the people of the Beau-Del, but that’s getting a little far astray. The Minister keeps making remarks that take us away from that project. That’s really all I have. I won’t be supporting this project and I would love the opportunity to support a...

Thank you. On that basis I appreciate the Minister’s comments there. I want to be sure that everybody realizes and I’m getting it right when I discuss this as a go/no go decision point. So I do have a number of comments.

There have been a lot of changes to this project over a very short period of time. Every one of them have pointed at increasing costs to the GNWT and also mounting costs to the total project. So just to review those, the original agreement that the federal government dangled in front of our noses was 75/25 at a cost of $200 million. That was going to cost this government $50...

Thank you. I hope that works out. As I understand it, these are fairly dramatic in terms of the size and implication. The wiping out a road is a small thing in an event such as this. Obviously, there is a concern there, but it sounds like the department is aware of that and working on that.

The Minister mentioned $2 million for maintenance, and that remains to be seen – again it’s an estimate – and that there will be hiring as a result of that. He used that to justify the economic development aspects of the road. That’s a very strange statement to me. We can hire people without having a road...

Just for clarity, Madam Chair, are you including here now the $5 million for the Inuvik-Tuk highway 177?

Of course, warming is also double the rate in this area compared to down south, and so we will be seeing impacts of that that are not on the road itself but that will connect to the road in an insidious way, and so there will be costs from that. But I am learning that so now the work to be done is not just the 50 bridges and so on, or 60 river crossings and 10 bridges, but it’s also to deal with this highly problematic 12 kilometres, and we have not designed the highway yet on how to deal with that 12 kilometres. Have I got that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had posed a question, if you will recall, to the Minister. Would you like me to repeat that question?