Thank you, Member for Monfwi. The motion is on the floor and is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Monfwi.

Masi, Mr. Chair. I feel it's important I speak my language, in summary, because this is a very delicate, sensitive matter in my region. [English translation not available.] Mr. Chair, towards this motion that I have submitted. I have been listening to the Members across the floor and here, as well, Regular Members, and different analogies have been read out. I like taking notes from Members when they speak so I can use their words, as well; similar to the Premier. Either we fight the fire or create a secretariat in the North. We must listen to the people. We only have limited resources. We are high in our debt limit. One forest fire, that is all it takes. If that were to happen, obviously, it's common sense, the forest fire would have to be a priority, not the secretariat.

Mr. Chair, the federal funding of the $24 million give or take, we are not telling the federal government to take it back as the Premier alluded to earlier. Whenever there is a free money, obviously, we like to take advantage of it. This is federal contribution of $24 million towards the COVID-19, not necessarily towards the secretariat that the government is pushing their agenda here. It's earmarked towards COVID-19 to offset the costs of COVID-19 but not necessarily to establish another bureaucracy within this GNWT. It needs to go to the overall coordination to deal with all COVID-19 in the Northwest Territories. What we are telling people here today, Mr. Chair, is secretariat is good for you. We are dictating to our own people of the North. We are not listening to them.

Mr. Chair, our government kept us safe since March. It did it in a manner respectful of our rights. It did it in a fiscally responsible manner when it first started, working with existing staff, shuffling our limited resources to where they were much needed. It came at a price in terms of overworked employees and a stressed-out system, but the GNWT made it work and kept us safe, Mr. Chair. Regrettably, at some point in the story, it also turned sour. It's at this point in the story that GNWT stops acting in a fiscally responsible way. It's at this point that GNWT stops making proud of our government and Cabinet that is calling the shots. Cabinet decided on a radical, unsustainable, unjustifiable approach.

Mr. Chair, they invented a model, a secretariat, completely new to this country of Canada, a model that no other Canadian jurisdiction dared to attempt, Mr. Chair, from Ontario, with over 15 million people, down to tiny Prince Edward Island. It decided to reinvent the wheel. What is this novel, untested GNWT approach, Mr. Chair? What our Cabinet wants to do is establish a totally new governmental department. They call it a secretariat, but that is only to minimize what they are doing, which is to set up a totally new government department, a totally new bureaucracy that reports directly to the Premier. The term "secretariat" is just a disguise. What's the price tag for this new department of COVID, Mr. Chair? It's a whopping $87 million today, but it could be far more even within the next few months or years.

Mr. Chair, just think of what $87 million could do for our people of the Northwest Territories. It could build 300 homes for homelessness. I have spoken to numerous times overcrowded Northerners. It could construct three new addictions treatment centres here in the North, plus six badly needed community health centres across the North. It's also equal to 100 new classroom teachers employed over the next five years. Mr. Chair, it also amounts to a cash grant for 500 struggling northern businesses to the tune of $200,000 per company. Just imagine. That could be an economic boost to our businesses in the Northwest Territories if we invest in those businesses.

Mr. Chair, instead of reinventing the wheel, there are other more productive, more useful things government could do. The government could focus on human cost, on social distancing rules and isolation requirements. I am talking about the loneliness, separated families, emotional stress, depression, substance abuse that we are faced with every single day. Mr. Chair, instead of more bureaucracy, Cabinet could focus on the costs of locking down the borders. That is where the COVID-19 is coming from, southern jurisdiction. Lock it down. It could be more establishing new isolation centres, assisting unemployed performing artists, creating work for hundreds who have lost their jobs through the COVID crisis. Instead, Mr. Chair, we are building a monument to the Premier's vanity, a secretariat bureaucracy wasting our taxpayers hard-earned dollars.

Mr. Chair, I can go on and on, but I am going to close off with saying: give us mature, intelligent, decision-making, Mr. Chair, not a new burdensome bureaucracy, not a Taj Mahal that I referred to earlier. Mr. Chair, when the supplementary request for the secretariat comes before this Assembly through this motion deleting that item, I hope my fellow MLAs will give it a reception it deserves. They must say no to the excessive, irresponsible spending of this government. They must say yes to a safe Northwest Territories led by decision-makers free of panic and fear, northern-made solutions with northern input at the beginning of this whole crisis and where we are at today. Mr. Chair, that concludes my opening remarks, and I will have more when I will conclude on the motion. Masi.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. To the motion. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to express some frustration. That is the first I have seen this motion, and it's moving to remove $8,277,000. I also am proposing a motion to move $5 million. The Minister of Finance just recently said we are picking random numbers. I have some questions about what this random number is as opposed to my random number. More to the principle of the motion, I do not agree with the things MLA Lafferty just said. I am in support of the COVID secretariat. I am specifically trying to remove money from the isolation centre costs because the projections for that and what I believe we will actually do do not line up. It's a weird situation where there is one motion to remove money and I am also proposing after this motion to remove money. I, ultimately, due to the fact that I support the COVID secretariat and disagree with the principle behind this first motion, am not in favour of it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. What I would ask anybody speaking to the motion is that you actually speak to the motion in front of you and not the one that may be coming up. Thank you. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.

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.

Thank you, MLA for Frame Lake. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you. I'm getting a little tired of people policing what other people say around here. If people want to speak to their opinions, then they should be allowed to do so. I think it's up to us to have to sometimes point out hard things and truthful things to the public and to each other, so I defend my colleagues' right to speak to however he would like to.

I agree. I don't think that $8.277 million is going to be the "make it or break it" for the safety of our people. I recently spoke to, and will speak to probably before the end of session, the circumstances around the last cases that came up around COVID. Nothing about what I've seen around the secretariat or the HSS's handling of the COVID cases gives me any faith that spending an additional $8.27 million on it will actually improve things. If anything, I think it's just throwing good money after bad, so I won't be supporting my colleague's motion here. Thank you.

Thank you, Member.

Question's been called. Sorry. Member for Monfwi.

Mr. Chair, I'm not sure how Members feel that this is not an important matter. We're talking about $8.7 million here. New money. If nobody else is going to speak to it, I want to close it off by saying that this has been an ongoing issue since March, and then the secretariat came in in August. We need to have a coordinated approach. We always have that at the beginning, and I felt that it was the best approach amongst other departments.

The Member alluded to me attacking the Premier. It's the Premier's job to defend the government. I'm asking and I'm pointing facts to the Premier. I'm not attacking the Premier personally. I'm attacking whoever the Premier's position is today. That's our job as MLAs, holding the government accountable. For that kind of money, we're going to throw at creating more jobs. Member says it's not a new department. It's a new established department. We never heard of it five years ago.

Mr. Chair, it's been stated in the House, as well, how much is one life worth? We have people dying on the streets. I can say that over and over. As soon as we walk out of here, we see people begging for homes, begging for food, and here, we're just going to pass $8.277 million like it's nothing. I have issues with that. I have people begging and pleading for housing, homeless people in my riding. We have lack of treatment services here in the Northwest Territories. We don't have any treatment centres in the Northwest Territories. After-care program lacking. Mr. Chair, it's very frustrating sitting here, but I just want to state my case that we're going to be voting on a motion here today. Obviously, the public will see how everybody votes today.

I just want to highlight some of the areas where I stand. Mr. Chair, I stand here before you in principle of this motion. The right thing to do for our territory, we should be redirecting that $8.2 million from the secretariat, the new money, to a co-investment fund or others that are highlighted, homelessness, housing, healthcare. It just makes sense, Mr. Chair.

Today, obviously, I will vote for housing for our most vulnerable, our homeless population in the North. I will vote for housing units which is the state of emergency across the North. That's a real story here. I vote for more treatment facilities, services, after-care programs, on-the-land programs. We are losing lives. As I stated earlier, over the weekend, I lost another young individual my son's age. That's hurting, Mr. Chair. It's hurting the community. It's hurting me as the representative for a region. We need to turn our attention to them. Let's save their lives. Their lives matter more than the secretariat.

Mr. Chair, I just want to close off by saying: I will not be, obviously, voting for the whole COVID secretariat supplementary that's before us, the $31 million. We must think about our most vulnerable people in the North. I'm not sure how else I can convince the Members, but they've already made up their mind. I'll be voting for the people of the North, to vote against the secretariat establishment, the $31 million plus overall next four years of $87 million towards the secretariat. That money should be better off spent elsewhere, where it's badly, badly needed. We hear it every day. We address it in the House almost every day. This secretariat just appeared, and it's before us now. On that motion, Mr. Chair, I would request a recorded vote, so I'd like to know where people stand, either with the government or for the people. Masi.