Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do appreciate the commitments that were made, I want to echo that, you know, that really was a consensus government approach was a very positive one for the people of the Northwest Territories. So I think the appreciation really does flow in both directions on all of those commitments.
Madam Chair, with respect to the travel reductions, this was not a simple process and it was not a simple calculation. It was done in a way where the departments came forward, did an analysis of all of their travel spending in order to understand what of the various travel budgets is in the category of discretionary as opposed to nondiscretionary. And, certainly, all of the travel that takes place takes place for the purposes of advancing the initiatives and efforts in programs and services of various departments. Some of that, though, of course, is to -- has transitioned to being more in line. Some of that is not going to be occurring because of various restrictions-- well, outside of the territories as well as in the territories over travel. And so what they looked as was to determine, indeed, what type of travel is critically and critically required, and generally that would, of course, be in the Northwest Territories as opposed to the discretionary and certainly non-Northwest Territories travel. So it wasn't a blanket 20 percent across all. It was 20 percent in the total budget but applied differently to different departments depending on the needs.
So there's some departments, for example Health and Social Services, their travel budgets might be not impacted the same way as, say ITI, because just of the nature of the travel that gets undertaken in the course of the year. But it was done, again, the focus was on ensuring that Northwest Territories travel and essential travel for the delivery of programs and services was maintained. Thank you, Madam Chair.