Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t scheduled such a briefing as of yet. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, this is a technical briefing on the construction of the bridge and that’s what the contents of the briefing will be referred to. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, good question, indeed. Mr. Speaker, usually, if there’s going to be a briefing of a political nature or the Minister is going to be involved or MLAs are going to be involved, we’d hold it here. This is a technical briefing provided by our staff, our officials, and it’s more convenient to have it at that facility. That’s the reason for holding it there. Thank you.

I can see the cause for concern. If it is an issue that has been caused by ourselves as a department and we can find out what the root of it is, we will certainly try to make amends so that people are not burdened by something that is not their fault.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve responded to a lot of different concerns that have been brought forward from the Members of this House, including licence plates and issuing of registration and having more transportation officers on the highways. This is not an issue that has been brought to my attention. This is the first I’m hearing of it. As far as I know, there has been no change to the quality or type of stickers that we’re using. I’d certainly have to follow up on that. It’s not an issue that I was aware of.

We are planning to introduce new licence plates sometime this summer. They are pretty impressive, from what I’ve seen. I’m not aware that we have changed our type of stickers. It’s an issue that will be of concern, of course, as we are going to be issuing new licence plates starting this summer. I will certainly commit to the Member that we will follow it up and see what the concern is, if that’s the case with a lot of people, if that is coming back to us. I personally have not had any problems, but having said that, we’ll follow up with the concern.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it’s good to see the visitors in the gallery all wearing green. Today I wanted to recognize my sister-in-law Melody, and my little bundle of joy up there that can’t sit still and I don’t think is really interested in what we’re saying, Cooper McLeod. Welcome.

Thank you. We have tried very hard to look at all the different opportunities or any other costs to enter the project and we feel that we’ve covered all the avenues. Of course, I can’t absolutely guarantee that. We’ve also assumed full management of the project. We have a new team, we have a new contractor. Along with that, we plan to have better communications with the public as part of the responsibilities for project management. We want to have regular updates to all the MLAs and the public with the sites that they could look at, informing themselves, including establishing a website and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member is quite familiar with the agreement that was signed with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, and in the Bridge Concession Agreement there is a clause that requires the Government of the Northwest Territories to assume the costs if they go over their budget amount. However, the money would then be recovered from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation from its return, and in the event that the government does assume all of the project and is not a partner anymore, it does allow for the government to recoup its costs through the self-liquidating clause...

There’s a P3 arrangement in this case and, yes, there are responsibilities assigned to different partners. In this case, we did charge back a lot of what the government has to have incurred, including all the different components of responsibility, but the two people that we have assigned are a position and a half that we have assigned directly to this position. We have not included and we did not agree anywhere in the concession agreement that we would charge it back. That’s the rationale for why we’re doing it the way we are. Thank you.