Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank all the Members for providing us their comments and input and raising issues that are of concern to them.

First of all I want to respond to the comment made that this department is too busy with the Deh Cho Bridge to pay attention to other areas. That’s not correct. We have one full-time position and another half-time position that are dedicated to working on the issues around the Deh Cho Bridge. We have other staff that also have responsibilities, such as Deputy Minister Russell Neudorf and other staff that do it on an interim basis.

Last year we had a capital...

Mr. Chairman, these were the revenues that we received from Canada, all the dollars that we got through Building Canada and other sources through the federal government that have to be amortized and recognized as revenue over the useful life of the asset.

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a one-year budget, so it’s for one year.

Our budgets are brought forward every year for review and passed by this House. So we’ll do the same thing next year, as the Member is aware.

The $95,000 is for O and M in the Wood Buffalo National Park, which is recoverable.

The budget was estimated to be $7 million.

Mr. Chairman, the Member’s correct; it’s a 50-50 cost share.

The reason the program was not continued was MACA decided no longer to fund it. They had other use for their dollars. I think they put it directly into the communities.

In response to the Member’s question whether we can actually put the application for dust suppressant through this program, the answer would be no. It’s not for actual construction. It’s for research and development.

Mr. Chairman, as we move forward and develop partnerships and sign MOUs with different aboriginal governments, different companies and different communities, we continually learn best practices. This is no different from the Deh Cho Bridge. The Deh Cho Bridge is a P3 project that had no policy, as has been mentioned before. It has since been drafted through Finance, I believe, and I’m sure as we take stock upon completion of this project, we will look at where we could have done better and learn from that. Thank you.