Thank you, Mr. Chair. We could look back and say this wasn't rolled out properly, but at the end of the day, it happened so fast. It shut down our territory. It shut down, global. It was global. I didn't agree with it at the start, but when I think about it, I have to be here to represent my people as the MLA for Nunakput. I am going to support this in regards to priority one, safety of the people of the Northwest Territories.
When you look back, like this past week, I asked in the House, our community bubbles, we need to be supporting. The funding that we're getting, I hope they can really look at helping our community, local community governments in regards to what's happening here. With everything that's been going on, money from the start in April when the local community government, for instance in Tuktoyaktuk, they did a roadblock. I wish that they could get their funding back, that they did outreach because everybody was scared. As an Inuvialuit beneficiary, we did have a pandemic, Kittegaryumiut. Three thousand families, 3,000 Inuvialuit beneficiaries died there in Kittegaryumiut, 17 miles away from Tuktoyaktuk. For this, when they say pandemic, it means a whole different thing from where I'm from. What we did, the government didn't roll out this the way they should, but they did do something. They acted on it, shooting from the hip, but we're dealing right now. Right now, we're in the whole COVID-19 world.
Basically, the safety of the people is priority. Don't care about the money. The local community bubbles that we should be looking at in regards to helping our local community governments again with funding that they expended upon COVID-19, which should be looked at and should be helped. Our elders in my riding, we should be funding them. They're doing a good job. Our local community government, the community corporation and stuff like that, they're doing good work with helping, sewing kits and stuff like that to keep people busy, but dark days are coming. We've got nothing happening in the community because of COVID, so we should be looking at helping them more. I know the federal government's really been doing their best. They've been doing a pretty good job, and I'm not Liberal. That's the truth, though. They've been doing good work. Thank you.
The schools' safety is priority. The schools, our elders, because if one gets in the community, I don't know how many respirators we've got, but the last time, I was told we had five, and it's all here in Yellowknife. Our small communities are really relying on this COVID secretariat for the safety of our people. Like I said, it's not about the money. I don't care about the money. It's the safety of the people in my riding. They're doing good work at the airport. I see when I land there, when we're allowed to go home for the weekend, they're doing good work. They are doing the best that they can with what they've got, and they're driving really nice trucks, too. We've got to take it easy on that.
The biggest thing for me is medical travel. That's affected us. It's been really hard on some of my constituents. They come down. They do a two-day testing or whatever they're doing in Edmonton, and they're back here, up to Inuvik for two weeks. If there's any way, for medical travel that I've said in my Member's statement yesterday, that we could shorten it up by doing that rapid testing when it's available, it should be done. Like I said, I'm in support of this. It's safety of the people of the Northwest Territories and in my riding for sure. I thank all who are doing the job, the front-line workers. I want to thank the front-line workers, the RCMP, the health centres, the store workers, the storefront workers, everybody, the hamlets, their staff. I want to thank them for all the work that they're doing under stressful times. Like I said, Mr. Chair, I am in support of this, and we'll just go from there. Thank you.