Floyd Roland

I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Thebacha, that Bill 1, Interim Appropriation Act, 2008-2009, be read for the third time.

Mr. Speaker, the process is laid out that followed through from the concession agreement, the guarantee that's in place, working with the banks and their lawyers, that they’ve had a secondary review on this.

The signing is to proceed with their final work on it. If the lenders are happy with what’s been committed, then it would be proceeded with.

The Department of Transportation representatives would have to be on a number of the file schedules — or files, I guess, is the term — and there may be a few for which we're trying to get that information that would fall under the finance side or the...

Mr. Chairman, the motion calls for the elimination of this one project. We have to remind ourselves of the fire season. The further north you go, there may still be some snow, but in the southern parts of the Territory the environment does dry out sooner. If we start dealing with this later on in the season — in fact, we will be in full summer season, and we put crews in place the 1st of May — this area can be considered as an ounce of prevention, in a sense. If we are unable to properly see where lightning strikes are hitting in the Northwest Territories, it delays the reaction time for those...

I have to go to the Minister Responsible for ENR for detail on that project.

This budget item deals with the bridge program that has been partnered with the federal government and G.N.W.T. Department of Transportation and has been in progress for a number of years. It addresses crossings of the creeks and rivers up in the Sahtu area, so it doesn’t include the ice roads up in the Beaufort-Delta.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, as I’ve sat here and listened intently, I’m sure they wouldn’t want to be brought up to this floor with next year’s public accounts or contracts over $5,000 and be reminded of that.

It is something we are looking at, as well as departmental travel.

Mr. Speaker, I’m very familiar with that one, so I can inform the Member and this House about that process.

In trying to establish a contract with a firm, looking at what kind of work you want done and what you’re hoping to get the message out and the delivery on, in those cases one would approach — in my case, anyway — the Premier of the day to ask for advice in this area regarding the work that’s going to be undertaken.

In some cases that type of investment produces a much bigger benefit. If we want to get into that, I can talk about the $50 million it’s saved us as the Government of the...

A number of these travel projects would fall under the department’s small capital allocations which would be bulked into a larger number but has come through in this as well for the detail. Environment and Natural Resources does patrol for illegal hunting, looking for potential spills in areas where work is occurring. They do have some older equipment that needs to be replaced from time to time. For specific details on this project, or this asset, I ask that we go to the Minister responsible, Mr. Miltenberger.

This section being “Capital” is actually for construction or infrastructure being put in place — for example, the bridges. The winter road construction would fall under O&M.