Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, I’m not quite ready to do so. I would have to look at the impact of charging back to this project and whether that’s something we’d have to incorporate to all our projects. Right now we don’t charge back our time for any project across the Territories. That’s something I could have a discussion with my Cabinet colleagues. We certainly could calculate the amount of time that our staff has spent, any costs incurred by our department, but I’m very reluctant to say we’re going to charge it back. It may have a further bearing impact that we anticipate at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, committee, for allowing me to make a few comments on the Deh Cho Bridge.

First of all, I guess, in hindsight, if we knew what it was going to cost, we would have built it in 1958 when the project was priced at $6.2 million and we wouldn’t be at this juncture.

Mr. Chairman, first of all I have to point out that I don’t think that anybody is happy with the news that the project has a cost overrun of $15 million. We certainly didn’t want to be in the position to come and request additional funding. It is unfortunate but it is a reality.

Mr. Chairman, it is also...

We don’t have any firm dates as of yet. As soon as we do, we’ll make sure we forward it to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was a little surprised to hear the Member raise the issue of the demolition of Deh Cho Hall. I thought maybe he was recycling his Member’s statement, or in the event that we were both talking about the same thing and he had some information that I wasn’t aware of. Mr. Speaker, we have made a commitment in this House to the Member that we would look at a salvage component to the demolition of Deh Cho Hall. We have not had any information, at least that has come to my attention, that all the materials are contaminated. We assume there is going to be...

Mr. Speaker, of course, the financial end of a contract, the end result of a good product, those things are all considered as we do an evaluation after the project is completed. Mr. Speaker, we have to point out that sole sourcing, of course, is only used in the situations that I outlined in the previous questions. So those are what we utilize as a guide and the end result is usually what determines whether the best practices were used in the case. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess there are three considerations that would be utilized for a sole-source contract to be awarded. First of all, the goods, the service or the construction have to be urgently required and the delay would be not in the public’s interest. We would also consider if there was only one party available that is able and capable of performing the contract. If it’s a contract with a consulting service or a company, that it will not exceed $25,000 in value, and if there are other types of contracts, of course, but that’s the basic criteria we use for sole...

Mr. Chairman, the planning study is estimated to take around four months to complete, and we are going to be looking at incorporating this project in the capital acquisition plan for this year, 2010. The planning study needs to be done by the end of June. There is some sense of urgency. Many of our leases, up to 70 percent of our leases are coming up for renewal. Present market rates and the conditions indicate that the rising lease prices are likely to stay very high and, therefore, we’re going to see significant increased costs associated with renewals. The study that was done, the lease...

Yes, we could commit to that. That’s always our intention, is whenever the ability and the time allows for public tendering of any types of contracts, that we use that method and that’s something we’ll certainly commit to doing.

I certainly can commit to working with the Premier to see what options there are and what involvement the federal government could be requested to assist us with in this situation.

Mr. Speaker, the indications that we had from the federal government was that either this project to have to move forward as a P3, because the project had started already prior to the P3 program becoming active and having the board set up, we didn’t qualify. We had been also asked to be considering using the Building Canada funding for the bridge if we thought that his was a high enough priority. At the time it was decided that there were many other projects that could utilize the Building Canada funds, therefore, that’s where we would invest, as the bridge project already had financing...