N.W.T. bridge could cost N.B. taxpayers: opposition

New Brunswick's opposition leader wants to know if taxpayers will be on the hook for the latest problems with the Atcon Group involving a cancelled bridge contract in the Northwest Territories.

Atcon has been removed fromthe $165 million Deh Cho Bridge project because the Miramichi, N.B.-based company and bridge developer couldn't agree on terms for Phase 2, primarily price.

The Graham government gave Atcon millions in loan guarantees during the past two years, based on the assumption it would be building the one-kilometre bridge over the Mackenzie River.

On Wednesday, government officials said the status of the loan guarantees remains "unchanged," despite the latest development.

'I think it would be asinine to assume there's no implication on losing that size of a job.' New Brunswick Opposition leader David Alward

But Atcon won't be getting whatever money it had hoped to make on Phase 2,Opposition leader David Alward said Thursday.

If it can't repay its lenders, that's when the provincial loan guarantees will kick in and the taxpayers will have to pay up, he said.

"I think it would be asinine to assume there's no implication on losing that size of a job."

Atcon officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

The company will be paid for its work on Phase 1, Deh Cho Bridge Corp. manager Andrew Gamble has said. But that represents less than half the total value of the project.

The province gave Atcon a $13.3 million loan guarantee in 2008 to allow the company to qualify to bid on the project.

In 2009, the province handed over another $10-million loan guarantee to help Atcon finance a steel fabrication yard in Miramichi to build components for the bridge project.

It was part of a larger package of loan guarantees worth $50 million.

"They were growing very rapidly, bidding on some pretty big jobs," cabinet minister Jack Keir said at the time.

The fallout over the bridge project came after the bridge corporation approached Atcon in November with changes to the bridge's design, as a result of structural problems identified last summer.

The change in contractor should not delay construction, which is already at least one year behind schedule, any further, officials have said.

But the bridge corporation will have to find a new general contractor by March 1 to keep the project on schedule for completion by late 2011.

When completed, the Deh Cho Bridge at Fort Providence, N.W.T., will link Yellowknife to southern Canada year round, replacing the current summer ferry service and winter ice road across the Mackenzie River.