Thank you, Mr. Chair. There have been quite a number of funding pots with respect to the Canada-Northwest Territories Safe Restart, which is the dollar funding that is coming towards the COVID secretariat. Funding under this agreement was to be used for testing; contact tracing; data management; healthcare system capacity; vulnerable populations; municipalities, on that one, I will note with respect to the municipalities, Mr. Chair, this is one area where we were required to put in a 50-50 contribution to match the amount that was allotted from the federal government, so that is one area where there was an additional amount that went in from the GNWT; PPE for both health workers and non-health workers; childcare for returning workers; and the beginning of some sick leave availability. Mr. Chair, I am happy to provide a costed breakdown rather than reading out the numbers, or I can certainly read out the numbers to the House. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that is a pretty expansive list, and I heard support for vulnerable persons in there. I am confident that, if this money is removed in a supplementary today, the smart folks at Health and Social Services and the Department of Finance will find a way to spend it in one of those categories. In regard to the $8 million that is the GNWT contribution, is that required to receive the rest of the funding? Are we under any contribution agreements such that we had to put up that money? I note the Minister mentioned that, if we wanted to give money to municipalities, it was 50 percent funded, but is that why we are seeing a GNWT contribution here for other reasons? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I am going to turn it over to the deputy minister because I think I just read out the wrong listing of items, and I just want to make sure that I am not getting that wrong. I am going to send it over there while I make sure I am on the right page. Sorry, Mr. Chair. Then I can come back to the $8 million.

Thank you, Minister. Deputy minister.

Thank you, Deputy Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. I think I first heard these figures back in August, September, but it's been a while, when I remember the COVID secretariat was first announced. I hear the deputy minister saying that the gap there is the projected cost of the COVID secretariat. However, I have also heard commitments from the Minister of Finance, commitment from the Premier, that we will go find cost-saving measures. I have heard a number of really great ideas of how we can do that. They each have pros and cons, as I have said. Shortening isolation periods, increasing rapid testing, renting apartments instead of hotels, putting the hotels out for tender, allowing isolation centres outside of the four hubs, there are plenty of ways that we can save money in this area, and I believe there is a recognition. I am struggling to pass money based on a projection that we are also saying that we will then go and correct. Can I just get a sense of: that initial projection which we are being asked to fund now, has it been revisited due to the number of cost-saving options that are being explored? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Member already listed quite a number of the cost-saving measures that are being quite actively considered. One of the functions and sort of one of the expectations on the secretariat staff right now is, in fact, to go out and provide some of the background for potentially reducing those costs through things like an RFP process for the isolation centres and revisiting a consideration of, in fact, who is being paid for, whose travel is being paid for.

I did want to note, Mr. Chair, it's not as simple as just drawing a line and saying we will not spend money or we will not pay for certain persons to travel. There are Charter considerations to be considered here, where some people, if the CPHO is saying they cannot stay in their own homes and we are telling them then you have to self-isolate at your own cost for 14 days, it creates a significant inequity for the people who live outside of those four hub communities. Figuring that route forward is not as simple as just drawing the line.

There are some fundamental rights at issue here and decisions that are going to need to be made. All of which is to say that that work is exactly what is happening right now with the COVID secretariat staff. Indeed, those decisions are coming forward and being worked on right now. Yes, again, it will have to keep continuing to come forward and evolve, just as our response to COVID-19 is evolving, just as the reality of the pandemic is evolving. I think the point has already been made that we need to be better at sharing that information earlier and more often. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to begin by saying I am very happy with our COVID response to date. We have one active case right now, and it was a scary case a couple of weeks ago when we were risking community spread. By all accounts, it looks like our response at our borders has been great to date. We are one of the best jurisdictions in testing. I am very grateful we are getting these staff. I have no issue with the COVID secretariat as a whole. I think it is needed. I do have issues asking the Legislative Assembly to pass the costs projected for the isolation centres when there seems to be a consensus that those costs will not actually be what we are passing today.

I have heard a number of options, and I am happy to see the commitment of variance reporting. I think maybe an accountant would say: MLA Johnson, the appropriation is just an estimate, and then the actuals are what actually matter, and the reporting and the variance reporting is what actually matters. However, the Minister of Finance has often told me that, if I want to ask for more things, then I have to ask what I would remove from the budget. I, at the very beginning of this session, said I wanted to see more money for housing and I want to see more money for the municipal infrastructure gap. I recognize we are dealing with a supplemental appropriation and that that it is not the capital estimates, but those things are related. If we move $5 million from the operations budget, that means there is more money in capital. It gives us money to work. I will do my best as an MLA that, when I ask for something, I give Cabinet an idea of where I would like it removed from. I have asked for $5 million for municipalities. I know they took a beating due to COVID. I am happy to hear that this funding pool could actually be used by them if we match the dollars.

I will be bringing a motion to remove $5 million from the isolation centres. One of the problems is: the way this supplementary appropriation works is it's essentially one line item. I don't want to remove $5 million from the staff. I don't want to remove $5 million from testing. I don't want to remove $5 million from PPE. I don't want to remove $5 million from the border. I am happy with those things. I am just not convinced that the projection in front of us has the homework done to actually find the cost-savings for the isolation centres. I heard from my colleague MLA Lafferty that he will be bringing a motion. I believe, procedurally, the best way for me to do this would be to wait until his motion and then bring mine to remove $5 million after.

I have one more comment. I want to clarify that, if this money is removed and we don't find those cost savings, which it seems everyone wants to find, there is nothing stopping government from coming back with another supplemental appropriation in the next sitting. There is nothing stopping them from saying, "We tried. We did the variance reporting. Sorry, we need that $5 million for isolation centres back." However, the way I see it, we're going to find that cost saving. I as a Member of the Legislative Assembly don't want to approve money that probably won't be spent because my experience with departments is that, usually, they just make a race to spend it all in the fiscal and I don't have the democratic oversight of that money. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that my message around, "Don't ask for more if you're not taking something out," is at least falling on some receptive ears. Notwithstanding that, Mr. Chair, the comment about the projections and a lack of certainty or clarity around the projections, the way that we come up with the projection of $31.7 million, Mr. Chair, was by looking at the actuals that were spent by and across all departments in the initial response, April, May, June, and I think July, as well, which was in and of itself a bit of a process by having to initially putting up codes and saying to each department, "Please code under this COVID code and try to maintain and identify how much is being spent," and cobbling all that together. That took a bit of effort, and it took a lot of effort on the part of all the departments and then on the Department of Finance to pull that together, to evaluate where all of the costs were coming in and where the spending was being affected in order to have our response to COVID-19.

Once that was done, once those were received, that's how the projections for what then became the COVID secretariat were done. It was based on knowing what we had spent to date under the conditions that we were under, under the Chief Public Health Officer's orders that we were under. Those projections are projections, but they are projections that are fairly accurately based. That said, as far as concern about "the money will just be spent because it's there," Mr. Chair, first of all, I think I've said before that that's not what departments should be doing, ever. Besides which, this is not that kind of situation. I don't think anyone wants to be spending money unnecessarily on COVID-19. Nobody wants COVID-19 in the first place. It's not a situation where the money would then be available to move around within the department, because there is no department here to be moving it around to. There is a very discrete and separate set of functions, which is what we will be reporting on now monthly here to the Members, at the very least, if not to the public on the website, so there is not really anywhere for that money to be squirreled away.

I appreciate the Member's creativity in trying to find a way to save it, but again, this is not something where it's going to sit there and get shuffled off. Also, one last comment, Mr. Chair, is that the money isn't coming from programs and services. It's not coming from municipalities. It is impacting the surplus, the operating surplus, but if it doesn't have to be spent on COVID, then it won't be spent on COVID, period. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. At this time, we'll take a short break.

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Committee, we will call the meeting back to order. Before I start, I just want to let you know that the interpreters have gone home, so we don't have any interpreters here. Okay. We'll go to Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If there is not support for the supplementary, then the extreme end would be to have special warrant for funding to support the actual response to COVID-19, which isn't really something we want to have to do. I don't think that's where this is going, though, Mr. Chair. If there is a removal of some random amount of money, and I don't mean to be disparaging, but essentially a random amount of money that just gets pulled out, then there is less money to deliver on the things that it's meant to deliver on. I don't know where we could take that out of, Mr. Chair. Something would have to give. Does it mean the communications budget gets cut? You want to sort of assume that you would do some sort of cost analysis of where you can keep the money, or do you keep funding as you are now in support of the Chief Public Health Officer, hoping that there is a change in the orders that allows for some savings? I don't have an answer to that, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. MLA.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. One of the things I hear quite often from both the business community and from constituents is that they feel that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Unless they are willing to be the one who stands up and says, "This isn't fair. My neighbour got this," or, "This isn't fair. This other business got this," or, "Somebody else is getting this type of exemption," when it comes to businesses, that's a big deal. That means that somebody else is able to pay their bills, whereas somebody else isn't because they didn't realize that they were able to go back to the Chief Public Health Officer and put their foot down and fight it, basically. How would the COVID secretariat make changes to that, and what guarantee do we have over on this side of the House that this promise of better communication and better policy foundation is actually going to happen? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can speak to one example, being that the ProtectNWT is meant to start to have essentially a connection to the business community so that there is a better connection between what's happening with businesses and with ProtectNWT, so that there is more streamlining that is being done within ProtectNWT and enforcement and compliance, so that the exemptions can be done in a more straightforward fashion, can be done more quickly, and can be done, rather than sort of as one-offs but rather by groupings by type. That policy work is being done in the secretariat, and then the implementation of it would also come through the secretariat in consultation with the Chief Public Health Officer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.