Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “NWT Carbon Tax Discussion Paper, Department of Finance, May 29, 2012.”

Madam Chair, let me throw out a couple more four-year-old analogies and sayings about being penny wise, possibly, and pound foolish or forgetting the forest for the trees.

In this case, we made a very conscious decision, one that had all sorts of factors and variables, but let’s talk to the money. Ten million dollars today as opposed to another $9 million probably by next year as you remobilize and get everything done and, as well, an outstanding another $10 million or so in possible claims that we would have spent months in litigation. We had claims. They had claims. We made the wise decision...

Madam Chair, there was a fundamental decision to be made and we have made it. That decision is this: Do we tie ourselves in knots in the midst of a project, that we are working desperately to conclude, with lawyers and litigation and all these other issues, or do we rise above that and look at what the end goal is here and what is in the best interest of the people of the Northwest Territories, which is get the bridge built, limit the further costs and get it done within this current building season.

There will be plenty of time for review. There will be plenty of time later for finger pointing...

The contractor in the contract is responsible. There has been, clearly, slippage. The reality we are faced with is the contractor was unable to conclude the work in the time that was predicted and agreed to. We are here today 90 percent complete, literally a few months from the end of this project to get it done. As has been committed to once the project is done, there will be the full review and debrief as to what happened so that we can learn all of the things we need to learn and going forward. Thank you.

Madam Chair, we’d be happy to give the information. We can verbalize some of it here, but we also have the complete deck that was shared with committee, which we would be more than happy to make sure the Member, in fact, has a copy so he is conversant with all the issues. But I’ll ask, as well, Madam Chair, with your indulgence, for Mr. Neudorf to walk through some of the key areas of investment. Thank you.

I well remember the discussions when we had this very similar debate. The Member might have been involved, as well, when we were talking about moving Health out of Inuvik to give the economy to the people in the Sahtu. I think that process is underway. We have commitments on decentralization. We are looking at how we do this, and going forward I think I know we will get there, but I’ll ask Minister Ramsay if he wants to speak to the issue so we can give the Member some comfort from the Minister himself. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left I have Mike Aumond, deputy minister of finance. To my immediate right, Russ Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation. As well, to my far right, Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the FMB. Thank you.

I indicated that there is an agreement-in-principle. That agreement-in-principle is there and has been committed to by both parties. Once the resources are in place to make it happen, the formal agreement will be signed.

Once again, there is nothing further I believe I can add that will assuage the Member’s concerns or allow him to accept the fact that we made some decisions. He is unhappy with those decisions, we’ve laid out to the best I can in this House, and the Minister has made every effort as well through the questions he’s been asked and the deputy, to lay out what the issues were, the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here to present Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 1, 2012-2013. This document provides for an increase of $10.014 million for operations expenditures and an increase of $105.745 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2012-2013 fiscal year. The total supplementary request is $115.759 million.

Major items in this supplementary estimate include:

$105.7 million to carry over funding for infrastructure projects. This funding was approved and lapsed in the 2011-12 fiscal period. The carry-overs for capital investment expenditures in...

For whatever the reasons the Member may have, that he wants to get in the middle or be seen to be causing a lot of friction and bad blood. We’ve worked very hard to come to a cooperative agreement with the contractor. We’ve done that. There is a need to move forward to get this project done. There is nothing to be gained at this point, as I’ve indicated, in the middle of this process to do the kind of forensic autopsy that the Member seems to be intent on, and to be able to point fingers in the confines of this House, to say many things when we’re intent on working out and have worked out a...