David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, considering we have a substantial investment of public funds in Deze, I’m just wondering how we account or how we provide oversight as a government to the work of Deze Energy. I’ve been a Member here since 2003 and we’ve talked about power purchase agreements in this House for years and there still aren’t any bankable power purchase agreements that the corporation, the Hydro Corporation, the Power Corp and Deze have entered into with any mine. I’m just wondering, again, when can we expect any movement on power purchase agreements, because it is taking an...

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Premier for that. I was thinking more of the upfront cost, the initial capital investment of upwards of $700 million. How will that be arrived at? Thank you.

Unlike the Deh Cho Bridge, we have to base decision-making on concrete cost-benefit analysis that will completely take into account all of the environmental, social and economic factors not only for the shareholders but for everyone who lives here in the Northwest Territories. I will have questions for the Premier at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Is the work going to be fully bonded to the maximum extent or are they just going to have a $1 million bond on a $72 million job? I mean, what are we talking about? They could have a $500,000 bond, for all we know. What’s it going to be? Thank you.

If the Minister knows that the scour rock used on the south side didn’t meet standards, again, I’m having trouble understanding if the quality assurances and quality controls are in place on that project how that rock could end up at the bottom of the river. That’s a pretty fundamental question for me. Does the Minister have pictures of that scour rock that was used? Has he seen pictures of that scour rock? Has the department seen pictures of the scour rock? I do have a number of pictures that I’ll table in the House and that I will share with the Minister. I wanted to make that abundantly...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I take some comfort in the fact that the Premier is talking to the federal Finance Minister. I know the Premier mentioned the fact that I’m a card-carrying Conservative, which is true. Although it’s unusual to bring up party preferences here in this House, the last time I heard that was from our current Finance Minister who had his ABC -- Anybody But Conservative -- campaign going in the run-up to the last federal election. I wonder how that is helping us with our negotiations with the federal government and any other concerns financially that we bring to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll be happy to provide some opening comments on the Supplementary Appropriation No. 2 that’s before us. I’m having a great deal of difficulty with supporting this. I’ll say that up front. I have been critical of the project from the very beginning. I mentioned earlier today in my Member’s statement that I just see one bad decision being compounded by another bad decision. For the life of me I cannot understand why we’re not going to complete an audit of the project. That is going through the books of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, going through all the records of...

I’m just trying to make some sense of how this happens. The money gets turned off in December. The Minister comes before committee the last week of January and tells us everything on the project is going along relatively smoothly. Within two weeks of that meeting we’re informed that the government is looking for a $15 million supplementary appropriation from us and looking for our support for that to in effect loosen up the lenders and get the money flowing again. I’d like to ask the Minister when did the Minister exactly know that there was no money coming from the lenders. I know he says he...

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Again, I wanted to get back to, and I hate to have the Minister of Transportation and his staff think I’m being petty or I’m getting into too much detail on this project, but, you know, excuse me, but if we dump $1.5 million worth of rock into the Mackenzie River that we shouldn’t have dumped in the river, I think somebody should be concerned about it and I hope they appreciate my concern.

You know, if those piers aren’t protected, eventually it is going to be an issue of safety for those piers and for the travelling public. So I don’t bring these up, I’m not just making...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Transportation. Again it gets back to the Deh Cho Bridge Project and the financial side of things. I want to ask the Minister of Transportation when exactly did the lenders turn the tap off on the project.