David Krutko

Mr. Speaker, in regard to the Minister wanting to look at the equity share and this stuff, would he also consider looking at the possibility of a resource tax, which is probably a better mix than looking at an equity share in regard to these types of developments?

Well, can the Minister argue for the people that fish the big fish, the whales, such as communities of Aklavik, Tuk and so if they do harvest whales from those communities, I think it’s no different than fishing. If it’s anything, it’s the big fish we are after, it’s not the little stuff. So I would just like to…Maybe you can use that as your argument when you go forward to the feds for the community of Aklavik.

The Minister of Transportation.

Mr. Speaker, I think we should watch what we ask for here, because I think if you’re going to open up one box, you’re going to be opening up a whole bunch of boxes from hydro development to diamond industry to oil and gas to you name it. You start opening up these boxes, you better be willing to look at everything that’s under the sun. I’d like to ask the Minister, if you’re going to consider this policy, you better make it a policy that basically affects the whole Northwest Territories in all sectors by way of the hydro sector, the oil and gas sector, the minerals sector, the diamonds sector...

The Minister mentioned that there’s a possibility of getting federal dollars for marine operations. Is there any idea of how much money we’re talking about from the federal government?

Minister of Transportation.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 7.

---Unanimous consent granted

I think the perfect solution would be a bridge.

Again, going back to the original questions, I think that, as part of our Highway Strategy, we do have to have some sort of a policy in place to allow to look at things such as P3s in regards to sort of the Deh Cho Bridge or even the Mackenzie Highway. That has to be an option or an alternative. I know we don’t have the capital dollars to do all of these things. I think that we have to find a way to finance it, knowing that we don’t have tens of millions of dollars. We need to do all these things, but I think we do have to look at alternative ways of financing projects.

I was in Manitoba with...

Mr. Chair, knowing that we had seven years and I think that four years is probably more reasonable than the two years the federal government are asking for. For me, that’s the issue, is that we have to ensure that those communities that are working on a similar project which basically we are expending money by way of engineering design, that we should try and find a way that we allow for those projects to be treated in a similar manner as this project. I’d just like to get some assurances that the project, especially the one in Aklavik, will be coming forward by way of some capital...