Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The intent is to make this as seamless a transition as possible.

Thank you, Madam Chair. What I have learned is, when I’m given two figures, a high one and a low one, especially as Finance Minister, I tend to immediately focus on the high number, knowing that in my experience the low number never tends to be the one where the project ends up.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. This particular money, they’re just finalizing the decision of how they want to deal with this.

Yes, Madam Chair, the $5 million is dedicated towards the Tuk-Inuvik highway as laid out in the supplementary document. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are doing two supps here, one for $5 million and one for $60 million. As has been discussed, approving these supplementary requests is going to signify and signal our commitment to this project for $299 million.

What the Member asks makes no sense to me. We are going to get the work started two weeks earlier in March. The money will be committed. The work is going to carry on past. It is going to be picked up by the $60 million that we are also going to be approving here later tonight, and the project will start to unfold. The Member is asking for something that...

It is part of the $299 million.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe Mr. Ramsay would like to respond.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m not sure I’m clear on the question. We have a project that costs $299 million. We know the federal government is putting in $200 million, 67 percent of the project, and we’re putting in $100 million. I’m not sure that is the issue that the Member was wanting me to address. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Everything that I know about the people of the Beaufort-Delta tells me that they don’t get along just by crossing their fingers and keeping their eyes closed and hoping for the best. This is a project that is of significance territory-wide. It is clearly a huge project of significance to the people of the Beaufort-Delta, and we all, every one of us wants to have our communities connected by a permanent all-weather road. I think that that’s a good investment. I just happened to look at the newspaper today and I just noticed a column from Cece McCauley laying out her...

Am I cool with it?

---Laughter

I had an intense flashback when you said that. When this supplementary appropriation gets, hopefully, the approval of this Assembly, then it will trigger a whole host of processes that will address the issues by the Member to make sure that we start tooling up, that this project brings good fortune to all parts of the Beaufort-Delta. It raises everybody’s boats. We want to make sure we have maximum employment. We want to make sure we use all the local businesses that we can locally, and that commitment is given. Once we get the thumbs up and we know we’re in...