Floyd Roland

This is one of the difficulties we face, is when the government-of-the-day puts the business model and gets behind a project. The government-of-the-day, and even this government, realizes we have limited capacity in subsidizing any projects of this nature. So this has purely been on a business case. That is the kilowatt-hour sale that could make this project go that could then deliver revenues to the partnership, that could then grow capacity, that could fuel further development potentials in the area. So we have looked at those options, as I stated earlier, through the environmental review...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 6, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2010-2011, be read for the first time.

---Carried

Mr. Speaker, without a customer at the other end, the project itself from a government perspective is unviable unless we are to get a huge influx of cash from the federal government or if we at this Assembly were to say take a portion of the dollars and put it purely towards this project.

This business case has been built on a customer; a number of customers in the sense of the mines. Future development, for example, and the Member has raised this issue of Avalon going forward, is important for us and looking to the future, but until we know if they’re actually going to make a decision to...

The Power Corporation contracted out much of the expertise that’s required in doing some of these assessments and pulling some of the costs together. The Member has talked about a number of routes: submarine that would be under the lake or at the bottom of the lake; the trans-island route, as discussed; and the western route. We’re talking of the base case plus, for example, the submarine. The estimates were about $50 million more; trans-island was about $40 million more; the western route was looking at $200 million or more.

Again, the partnership has looked at this purely on the business case...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the Members have raised continuously, since the start of this Assembly, the concern about the Deh Cho Bridge and the project, to the point where we dealt with the item yesterday and will continue to deal with it for the next couple of days.

On this particular motion, one of the things that I must put out there clearly, although it is a furthermore within the motion, that we officials acted and appointed officials actively cooperate with the Auditor General. That is bordering on stating we don’t. In fact, we do. Every year we work with the Auditor General...

Mr. Speaker, to be fair, the previous governments that initially got this concept together put the pieces together, presented to Members the idea on how to move forward through this partnership. At that point there is no number to be able to say through, for example, the environmental review process could add additional dollars much like by the environmental review process looked at it, adjusting the line through the East Arm, that could add some dollars to this project. We could not sign power purchase agreements until we get through the environmental phase, because we need to know the final...

Mr. Speaker, as this project is moving along, the work on the partnership agreement as well as the power purchase agreements have been going parallel with the environmental review process. We are, as a Cabinet, having to look at that partnership agreement and decide if we can sign that or not or if we would tell the remaining partnership that they would have to go seek outside partners to help bring this project along. Thank you.

The jurisdiction of water, although not in the Northwest Territories area of responsibility, through our Water Strategy and working with our aboriginal partnership, we are coming up with a comprehensive planned approach to the water issues in the Northwest Territories. Right now the Department of Fisheries and Oceans does that work when it comes to waterways and testing. We can also bring it from time to time, for example if there is an environmental issue, the Department of ENR could be drawn into that. Again, I would have to get the appropriate departments to provide that information and the...

Mr. Speaker, once the power purchase agreements are signed, then those are bankable in the sense of being able to go out and go to the financing market so that they can then get the money to build this facility. The issue, as was laid out to Members and was raised earlier, was during the construction phase, until the power can flow there needs to be a backstop. There were initial requests made in the previous government to have a request made to the federal government to give an exemption around this project. The last government, the response wasn’t favourable to that request. The work has...

Mr. Speaker, the business case that was put forward, the modelling, the request for support from federal funds, as well as this total project being based on the power purchase agreements that are to be signed with the mines. Without those power purchase agreements, there is no project. The issue of the construction phase is until the construction is done and the delivery of power happens, the revenue source isn’t there yet, so that’s the construction phase that they are seeking to have some commitment from the Government of the Northwest Territories or the federal government to deal with that...