Thank you, Ministers, for being here today.
I have questions for Minister Chartrand to begin with.
Life is tough in the north with food, fuel and housing costs at all-time highs. It's why projects running billions of dollars over budget tick off northerners. The Giant Mine remediation project started with a budget of $1 billion, a lot of money for most Canadians. Now it has quadrupled in cost to over $4.4 billion, of which $202.3 million went to consultants alone. Many demands by the Giant Mine Oversight Board have largely been ignored by your team.
A source from Yellowknife close to the project wants to know when you will be auditing the Giant Mine project for fraud. Minister, why should taxpayers foot a $4.4-billion bill for a project your government has lost control of and refuses to explain why?