Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know it's been a long day and long evening, but I am concerned with some of the remarks that I heard. I think I do not support personal attacks on the Premier. This is not about the Premier's vanity, and I do not accept those kinds of remarks being made in the House. I just don't think that they are appropriate.

This is not another bureaucracy. This is continuing functions that have been going on since March, April, May. This is not a new bureaucracy. This is continuing the efforts of our government attempting to respond to a public health emergency. This is unprecedented. We have a pandemic. We have a public health emergency on our hands, and I take at face value what my colleagues on the other side have said, the Minister of Finance, the Premier, in terms of demonstrating fiscal prudence with monthly variance reports, that there are efforts underway to reduce the cost of the isolation centres, which are the major part of the cost in the supplementary appropriation for the COVID secretariat functions. I'm not dictating to anybody what happens with this pandemic. I accept what the Chief Public Health Officer has done to date in terms of keeping us safe or keeping our residents safe.

Everybody's entitled to their own views about whether they support this funding or not. I'm not dictating to anybody, and I don't believe that Cabinet is dictating to anybody how we respond to the pandemic. A lot of this has been done quickly, and I think it has kept our residents safe. I commend Cabinet and my colleagues on this side of the House for working together through a lot of this. It hasn't always been easy, but I think we've found reasonable compromises and grounds to work together in the interests of all of our residents.

I had hoped that if people on our side have concerns or issues with the cost, that there would be more specific suggestions around ways to reduce them, and I think some of us have brought some of those ideas forward. If you don't like the management function performed by the secretariat, say so, and move to remove that, or the communications function. There's a number of things here that I'm just not prepared to compromise on things like border controls, ProtectNWT, the self-isolation centres. We'll be watching very carefully. We'll continue to put pressure on my Cabinet colleagues to find, to save funding for those functions.

At the end of the day, how much is public health worth, $8 million? I'm sorry. I'm prepared to spend that to invest in the health and safety of our residents. That's what this is about. We're not approving $87 million here. This is about funding for the COVID secretariat functions to the end of this fiscal year. Next year, all bets are off. I'm hoping that the pandemic is over by then. We're being asked to approve an additional $8 million tonight, and I'm ready to do that. I'm not prepared to support this motion, and I would hope that colleagues, when speaking to this, refrain from attacking individuals that are here in the House. Thanks, Mr. Chair.