The Chair Lesa Semmler

Okay, thank you. I will now open the floor for general comments, and if the Members, just give me time to make sure that I don't miss anybody. All right. MLA Johnson.

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just wondering if the Minister can provide us an update of the initial fire suppression budget and what this initial -- or this additional $75 million brings us up to as a total and then perhaps try to answer the question whether we think this is the grand total or whether another supplementary appropriation may be coming. Thank you.

The Chair Lesa Semmler

I'm just going to leave this as general comments until we get into the detail. So if you have general comments on this, state your general comments, and then if you want to get into detail with question and answer, we'll when we get into the line by line item. So do you want to continue, Mr. Johnson.

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

No general comments. I'll ask questions when it comes to detail. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. MLA for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Madam Chair. My questions are going to be detailed as well. So thank you.

The Chair Lesa Semmler

All right. MLA for Kam Lake.

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I do have some general comments, and I'm going to start just by saying that I was quite surprised to see that this supplemental appropriation was specific to ECE and did not include Finance and ITI. Just from -- I'm currently sitting here in session today from the city of Edmonton, which has gone above and beyond to try to support residents, and I have to say a huge shout out to city councillors as well that have been working closely with MLAs, to try and help out people as best they can. But right now where I sit, a lot of residents have paid out of pocket for commercial airfare to get here and some of those dollars that they paid for to get here were from their mortgage and rent dollars. Some people car shared and with the current subsidies that are being provided by the GNWT, only the driver is eligible to get the dollars, and so that means that some people car shared, paid out of pocket for gas and aren't eligible to get any kind of subsidies from the GNWT. Some people ended up paying for hotels for days here down in Alberta because they were unable to get through the lineups with the Red Cross to access hotels or didn't have a means of leaving the city where it was longer for people to get hotels. And I spoke with one mother who had four young kids and was sleeping in a vehicle instead of an evacuation centre because she just didn't feel that that was a good option for her for sleeping with her children and that she would get more sleep in her vehicle. Some people are having to take taxis to the Expo Centre here in Edmonton to get food for their families because they're not comfortable in a big city using public transportation, even though the city of Edmonton has graciously made that complementary. Some people have never left the Northwest Territories before, and so it's really quite intimidating to use such a large public infrastructure to try and get around. Some people are travelling for most of the day just back and forth to the Expo Centre to try and get food and have had to kind of use out-of-pocket dollars to access some of that and are really feeling the pinch.

So from there I also just wanted to kind -- and I'm using this time, Madam Chair, to talk about this because there isn't a space in this supplementary appropriation for Finance or ITI, and so I'm unable to kind of talk about it outside of this, this space right here. But my other concern is that I have a lot of constituents who have not seen a disruption to their income but given all of these additional costs that are out-of-pocket and given that a lot of people in our territory live paycheque to paycheque, the additional costs of this evacuation are really stretching them beyond their limits and they're not sure how they're going to really put themselves back together. And I know that one of the things that we often hear said is that people need to plan for a rainy day, but a lot of people have just started to recover post-COVID. And when I think of, like, our neighbours to the south of us over in Hay River, they've been hit with rainy day after rainy day after rainy day, and there's not been an opportunity between any of their evacuations to kind of save for that rainy day. And especially when you're living paycheque to paycheque, there's no money to put away for a rainy day; the North is an expensive place to live. And so I am very concerned about, especially the residents from Hay River, who are -- I don't know how they've even begun to catch their breath. I'm concerned for the residents that I serve as to how they're going to weather this, especially where we do not know what the timeline on this is, and so I have questions too at a later date about whether or not there is room to extend these subsidies and be a lot more simple and flexible and provide them to every resident; as to whether or not if this evacuation continues, if we're going to look at additional subsidies; and that doesn't even touch on our entrepreneurs and our business owners that we very much seem we rely on in the territory with all of the work that they have done to fire smart the territory.

I'm very appreciative that the SEED funding was opened up, but I have businesses who have paid out-of-pocket without billable hours. They have paid salaries to their workers to keep them going, and they're not getting any billable hours. They're sitting down here, they are bankrupting their businesses in order to keep food on the tables and in the mouths of the workers that they have because at the end of the day, the longevity of their business, like, there's -- they're good people, which is why they're doing it, but the longevity of their business also relies on them affording their workers to come home and to stay in the territory and to keep building the territory with them. And so I just wanted to point those out there that I really would have liked to have seen some Finance and ITI dollars in this supplementary appropriation so we could discuss some of those items as well. And I'll have more specific questions for ECE when we get to the appropriate time in the budget. But I have a lot of concerns right now about our residents wearing this evacuation and weathering this very big storm. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Are there any other Members for general comments? Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Richard Edjericon Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also would like to add on to my colleague Caitlin Cleveland's comments as well. The majority of my calls are coming in from -- to me as the MLA for the Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh riding is that we have a lot of members that are in Edmonton and Calgary that are displaced. Right now as it is, you know, I understand that there's supplementary funding that's been made available up to $750 for people that drove out and back. But right now as it is, people that are living on social assistance, you know, they can make application to get money and get direct deposit, but right now as you and I, we all sit here today, I have people that are -- can't afford to take a taxi to do laundry let alone to eat. You know, the monies that they have just basically, when they left Yellowknife, was basically they had no money. And now, you know, they're -- each First Nation are doing the best to help their members but as we speak right now, we got people that are asking, begging hotel managers and front desk for food and, you know, they can't even take a taxi down to the centre to get food for their children. So, you know, it just -- it's really disheartening right now as it is to -- you know, to hear these kinds of stories coming from my constituents that are down south. And not only from them but from other constituents as well, from Yellowknife and Behchoko and so on. So I'm hoping that, you know, when I read, you know, the Red Cross in Alberta, you know, who's south from us, and the food and everything else is cheaper -- are cheaper down there. But yet, you know, they are -- the Red Cross will fund them $1,250 per adult and $500 for each dependent. And, you know, that's in Alberta, but here in the Northwest Territories we need to step up as a government to help our people out too as well that are part of this evacuees down in Alberta. I know there's people on the streets in Edmonton, Calgary, people being kicked out of the hotel rooms, and so on. So I'm not really sure, like, at this point -- my phone's been ringing day and night and dealing with all kind of issues. So I'm hoping that, you know, maybe this government should maybe reach out to the Red Cross as an idea and get them to -- because right now I don't know if we have the means to help all the evacuees here in the Northwest Territories right now, but we do need to help. So Red Cross has the capacity. Maybe -- I'm just throwing this out there for discussion but right now as it is, we need to do something. You know, this bill that we're talking about from the Finance Minister, I understand that and the urgency behind it, but we also need to really, really figure a way out because this is something that this -- this here incident or, what do you want to call it, disaster, doesn't happen, like this is the first one in a long time that I can remember that's hitting home. And -- but I get calls. I got mothers crying to me. I got fathers crying to me and so on. So I'm not sure what to do. But I'm just -- I just want to put it out there and maybe we could have a discussion on that too as well. But anyway, I think the Red Cross is out there. They have the means and capacity to pay these guys, our evacuees as much as they can, but Alberta, that's what they do in Alberta. Here in the Northwest Territories, our cost of living is much higher. So, anyway, I just want to put it out there and maybe have some discussion on it. But we do -- we need to do something, and we need to help the evacuees out. And it's already been over, what, a week or ten days now, and a lot of the people are, again, have no money, and they're struggling, and I'm really -- I just want to bring that to your attention. Thank you very much. Mahsi.

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Members, I just want to remind you that this supplementary appropriation estimates is to provide funding for the shortfall in fire suppression activities for this season. That's what we are discussing here in Committee of the Whole. And so if you can keep your questions focused on that because the Minister is not -- that's what we're prepared for here today. We don't have a bill for -- or any other information on the recovery. So I'll just put it back to Members, are there general comments on this Supplementary Estimates No. 2? Thank you.

Seeing none -- oh, MLA Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I just want to, I guess, a couple comments and, you know -- you know, the Minister's now asking and this government's asking for another $75 million to continue with the fires, you know, the firefighting efforts going on, and rightfully so. There's a lot of work going on to -- you know, to support the -- you know, the firefighters, you know, there's probably cost of equipment and the support to those at the front lines as well. And I think this is just a start of what the ask will be. But, again, you know, I understand as well is that, you know, there's no asking here for additional funds for evacuees, which we're hearing a lot of.

In Hay River, we've been hit three times with evacuations and basically people are financially exhausted. We need to force -- you know, this government has to force the federal government to step up and provide -- for me, it would be no less than $3,000 per adult and $1,500 per youth as a start to support them while evacuated.

The other issue too that's come up and, again, it doesn't relate to the $75 million, but is the need to address and support businesses. A lot of them are hurting right now. In Hay River, again, it's the third time that they've --

The Chair Lesa Semmler

MLA -- Mr. Simpson?

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

What?