Thank you, Madam Chair. When speaking about a department being overtaxed, I in no way implied that the people working in that department are not working hard. My point being that there has been numerous unplanned-for disasters over the last several years, and this is the smallest department. In the Minister's words himself, in an email, has told me that his staff could not -- did not have the capacity to deal with the flooding that happened in Fort Simpson so I would assume that, given the flooding that happened the year after in Hay River and now forest fires, that that would continue on.
When the Minister speaks about the $285 million being more than we've ever seen before, well, all I've heard this government talk about and blame is inflation and supply chain issues. So looking at a final number of $285 million and comparing it to pre-COVID years and saying oh well, we're actually doing quite well is not really the full situation. To me, a lot of that would probably just be about cost overruns, money back more to contractors as they've had to bear more costs, the lack of prompt payment by the GNWT, the lack of awarding of contracts, money being spent on RFPs by people that are then not awarded that the GNWT doesn't seem to be too concerned about private sector having to spend money and time preparing those. So I don't think that that's a really fulsome look at what is going on there.
I'm going to stop there but I think that this, again, I would like to reiterate, that our government holds all the keys and the strings to the municipalities and communities, and to then turn around and act like it's the municipalities and communities that did not get this money out the door when the government was stopping people from coming into our territory and impeding business is not something that I can sit and just listen to. Thank you.