David Ramsay

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.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I suppose this is one scenario that we should be asking for the 10-year period rather than the five-year period, but that’s just to me delaying the inevitable. This is a situation that this government has gotten itself into and I think we have the responsibility or should have the responsibility to try to get ourselves out of it the best that we can and not saddle a future government with the debt.

My belief is we probably should take a look at the infrastructure spending next year on our capital projects and we should look at rolling that up and putting that money into...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted.

And this project has never been normal from the word go and I’m raising these issues out of the… You know, it potentially could be a public safety issue and it could potentially cost this government more money to fix deficiencies if they’re not corrected now. It will cost us more money down the road to correct these things.

On the scour rock, I’m just wondering, is the plan to go down under the water and see what’s left of that scour rock, and if we are going to get under the water, are we going to inspect the pier footings and the workmanship of those piers under the water? Thank you.