Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Although I don't think any of the members of our team are against studying a few more assets over there, and that's for sure, with respect to the language of the amendment, I think we're probably far from finished.
The National Capital Commission, in their original communication with the original diagrams and ATIPs were the first to refer to it as a barn. We will likely end up voting against the amendment just because of the language, although we don't necessarily disagree with including a few more assets.
I just want to draw your attention to a couple of things. In my riding, just for an example, the community of Doaktown built a brand new modern state-of-the-art hockey arena, and it was under $7 million. Picture that. Kids from the rural community of Miramichi as well as from Doaktown and from as far away as Blackville and Renous sometimes use the arena as well.
The barn at the Rideau property cost more than a brand new modern hockey arena. Think about that. Think about it for a minute. Think of the two biggest projects for the City of Miramichi in the past 10 years. Dredging the river was going to be paid for by a private company. It was a $12-million cost. The river had been dredged probably since it was first possible, maybe in the late 1800s or early 1900s, but by 1994 it wasn't dredged anymore. We were a port town originally, my community.
The member from Beauséjour saw to it that a $1.5 million ask just to fix the navigational aids, which had deteriorated from the 1990s, was declined by this very government, as well as $5 million for the Northern Energy Solutions pellet mill that was going to be situated in Newcastle on the former Repap properties. That was going to be for tools, equipment and jobs. The total project was around $80 million, as I remember.
If you look at rural Canada, some of the larger projects that get completed.... I helped get a nursing home when I was a provincial MLA. It was 30-bed nursing home. I believe it cost $9 million or something.
If you look at the cost of a $8-million barn, nobody can understand the concept of that. We still don't know the square footage. We still don't know how many floors go underground. We still don't know what's down there. Most people have a barn; they just don't have it laced with fibre optics, underground tunnels and elevators. Most people where I live could never understand it.
People, quite frankly and properly so, are sick and tired when they look at an expenditure of this magnitude. This Rideau property is literally just one big racket. It's the racket at Rideau. It should be a series of novels that we're probably going to write in due time. There's no value for money.
One other thing I noticed, and I think it's really interesting, is that if you look at the ATIP, you see that it listed all of the companies and expenditures. It listed Pomerleau as the main contractor—they would say the primary contractor. When it was going to list what they were going to accomplish, that was the only thing on the document that was redacted. That was the only thing. It was very clear that they won the bid. It was very clear that they were the primary contractor and that they would handle some of the other contracting, or maybe all of it, but it wasn't entirely clear what the purpose or scope of their employment would be. I thought that was interesting.
That's the end of my comments. We'll be voting against the amendment.