Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is going to be the forest management programs in Fort Smith. The tender to operate and maintain will be let. In all probability, it will be one of the large operators in Yellowknife. We will build in the requirements for storage during fire season. As with the 215s, they are stationed as on an as anticipated need basis, some in Yellowknife, some in Smith, Hay River, Inuvik, Norman Wells, depending on where the project need is or if there are some active fires there, and that is always changing. The Members will remember over the years flying out of Yellowknife...

I was going to suggest being put out to pasture. They are over 60 years old. Being over 60, I can tell you, keeping up with the guys in their twenties is very, very tough, if not downright impossible, to be completely frank, in the confines of this Assembly, just amongst ourselves.

Are there other uses for the 215s? There could be. The Member and I have talked a bit about this and I have heard this from the owner of Buffalo Airways, his vision of a fleet of pollution-fighting aircraft that could respond to spills and be there if they are needed. In fact, there were discussions with ENR at one...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like every other arm of government, we are very aware of the fiscal constraints that we operate under. When we looked and we did years of work mainly with Meyers Norris Penny, looking at all the planes and it came down to also having the hat of the Finance Minister on, and as I was looking at this, what can we come forward in good conscience to tell the Legislature to make the case of what is the best way forward. The discussion was very quickly that the 802s could meet our needs at a fraction of the cost of getting four 215s or four 415s, three times, four times more...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we do with all major expenditures like this, we’ll have full engagement with committee on a go-forward basis, especially given the approach being contemplated and the dollar amount on the table.

Mr. Chairman, that is not in fact the case. We are looking at a P3 procurement approach, first because our policy obligates us to for projects over $50 million. We had a lot of discussion around this whole P3 approach around the bridge, which wasn’t actually a P3 project. It is a recognized, valuable method of building infrastructure that’s used out around the world and across Canada. Issues like public interest are paramount. The value for money has to be demonstrable. Appropriate public control and ownership, as the Minister of Health has said, will be preserved. We have to have a clear...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We brought in some professionals on this and they did a survey of the landscape. While there are clearly incidents where things maybe didn’t work according to plan, there are also many instances when they did. They looked at all of those issues, they looked at what was being proposed here, the type of projects, and when they came back with their recommendation, it said that from the balance of all these factors that there is a business case to be made for this project to proceed as a P3.

Keeping in mind all the considerations that have been talked about here today, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Public Accounts 2013-2014.”

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For projects over $50 million, the policy requires us to look at whether the P3 approach is a viable approach to be considered, and we have done that. The business case has been done and the assessment comes in that yes, it is a viable project and the business case is there under the P3 approach, hence the consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As with all projects, Public Works will be managing the infrastructure project itself, per se, but clearly when the value for money, the issue comes as we proceed with the P3 and that is where we finally go and the prices come in way off the mark, then I will have to look very carefully at the cause of that.

This is not a project that is a cost-plus where money is not an object. It is $350 million. So if that includes looking at other ways of building the project, of course we will look at that. We want to get the best, highest quality project that we can on budget and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unless there are specific questions further to the fairly comprehensive response from Minister Abernethy, a lot of mine would just be a repetition. So, we could have that discussion. We do have the policy and we are setting up the P3 corporation. A P3 approach is recognized and encouraged in most jurisdictions, and in this case they’ve done the work, they’ve set a business case, we submitted that last March to committee and that says that the P3 approach is viable and makes sense. As Minister Abernethy said, we’re proceeding down that path. No final determination has...