Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to talk about the reporting back from Indigenous governments, and make that very clear. It's not that the Indigenous did not report back to me. It's that I didn't get hold of all the Indigenous governments. I had a meeting and eight Indigenous governments were there. Seven of the Indigenous governments, on that call, vocally stated that they support the secretariat, once I explained what it was. I had one in that call who said, "I need more information." That chief actually, once we gave the information, replied back to me and didn't say, "I didn't support it." All she said was, "You need to get this out more. You need to communicate more."
Since then, I met with two other Indigenous governments, and both of those Indigenous governments gave me support for the secretariat. Nine out of 10 Indigenous governments that I connected with gave me overwhelming support for the secretariat. One, I don't know, because she just said, "Communicate better." Then the other ones, it's not that they didn't reply back. It's that I hadn't had the chance to get back to them because the secretariat has only been operating for less than a month. I've been in session, so my time has been really tight, too.
The other thing I want to say is about stepping up to the plate. We had people stepping up to the plate. I think every one of you knows enforcement people, and I heard and I believe them. If we had had a forest fire this summer, we would have had to make a choice: fight the fire or do the enforcement. That's the decisions that we would have had to make. It's not about "just as easy." We took out most of MACA. We took out most of health. Those departments stepped up, and they can't keep doing it. About stakeholder engagement, yes, I didn't engage with everyone, but I did talk to the staff. I wish that MLAs would also talk to the staff because they said it wasn't sustainable. Sometimes, we have to listen to the people who are providing the services, as well.
As for coordinating, that's what we're trying to do. The secretariat has only been in place for less than a month, now. I don't know what kind of miracles you're wanting. Before that, absolutely, it wasn't coordinated well. That's why we said we had to do this. It's only been in place for less than a month, and we are hoping that we'll get more efficient. Like I said, for this year, it's around $9 million, and we are hoping the federal government will give us more money. Also, we're looking at ways to save money on the isolation units, which you'll see coming forward very soon, because we already presented to committee on our plans to do that. We will bring down the costs, but you have to remember that this is for the people. Thank you, Mr. Chair.