David Ramsay

Mr. Speaker, given the fact that the previous government was signing on to a $160 million infrastructure deal, I’m wondering what role the Finance Minister would play in that. The impact that’s going to have for 35 years to come is $242 million. The former Finance Minister is still the Finance Minister, and I think he has some explaining to do, Mr. Speaker.

The Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly put a lot of faith in what the government was telling them at the time. The former Premier said he would come forward with information that was going to be contained in that concession agreement before it was signed off. That never happened. The concession agreement was signed on September 28, 72 hours before the election, Mr. Speaker.

I want to ask the Premier if he is aware of whether or not the former Premier and cabinet had access to the cost-benefit analysis when Regular Members first found out any information — a little bit of information — on...

I’m going to speak today about the Deh Cho Bridge project.

I’m very concerned that the government is so far into this project that it now can’t even begin to estimate what it would cost for us to get out of it.

Regular Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly passed two motions in this House — one in May of last year and the other in August — demanding an updated economic analysis and some detail on the concession agreement before it was signed.

Mr. Speaker, we had assurances from the Premier that we would have that type of information prior to the government signing off on that project. As we...

Again, I just think somebody has some explaining to do. This has been on the books for a while. There is a fire at that school, they’ve got insurance money, and they’ve got $9.2 million approved in prior years. They think they’re going to move forward with renovations at that school. So they go out and do the work, and it comes back. The Minister says it was $22 million; it was much higher than that, Mr. Chairman. So they were under the assumption that they could start the work this year and it would be included this year. So they go back, and they’re trying to do their work to try to arrive...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to talk a little bit about École St. Joseph and the renovation project.

In prior years we approved $9.2 million, and I see that it’s off the books. It’s not included in the proposed Infrastructure Acquisition Plan. I have some issue with that.

We’ve talked a lot about our acquisition planning process and how that’s messed up. There’s a cabinet committee now struck to try to look into revamping that capital acquisition planning process. I think that’s a good thing. If there was ever a reason why, this is it. I feel quite strongly about this one. Because it’s one...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I’ve had a tour of the North Slave Correctional Centre. It’s in my riding. It’s not Bowden and it’s not Drumheller. You know, we’ve gone to more of a holistic approach with Corrections. I don't know if having a fence built around the young offenders unit and the North Slave Correctional Centre is necessary. Somebody might be able to convince me of that at some point, but not today; not when we’re faced with the reductions going on.

I would be interested to hear how many people have escaped from the North Slave Correctional Centre and the young offenders unit, because when...

I didn’t hear the Minister talk about — and this is a big part of it for me — what the $863,000 that was already approved was spent on. I haven’t heard an explanation on that, but I’ll keep going. Maybe we can get some detail about that later.

The Minister also talks about a master development plan there, but looking through the capital plan and looking at the capital expenditure that is going to be necessary in Hay River, as well, leads me to wonder if the government has an overall health care facility plan. Why would we look at duplicating an effort in one community and then a couple of years...

I’d like to seek unanimous consent to return to item No. 3, Public Works and Services.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the date stamped on that thing was December of 2007, which would lead me to believe that the government — the 15th Legislative Assembly — signed a $160 million deal on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories without that cost-benefit analysis, which says that we’re going to go from a positive $38 million impact to a negative $50 million impact. Is that true?