Thank you, Madam Chair. I too will be supporting this supplementary estimate of $75 million. First of all, I want to acknowledge that, you know, Fort Smith evacuees have been away now for two weeks from the community and, you know, being the first community that was evacuated, it was a lot of -- it was very much a learning experience on behalf of myself and a big bearing on the evacuees from Fort Smith because, you know, there was a lot of loopholes. And I just want to thank all the Cabinet and all the ordinary MLAs and all the bureaucrats that helped me navigate to ensure that the Fort Smith residents were looked after properly. It was -- it was a big experience and an experience that I will never forget.
I want to thank the first responders and everybody who helped and who are helping with the fire and all those that are in evacuation centres, you know, it's -- it's a big experience for not only our Indigenous but all residents of Fort Smith and the NWT with this kind of disaster.
My question is for Minister Wawzonek, and I just want to ask the question about the operational budget. $75 million from the operations budget, I would like to know how that's going to affect all the departments and how we're going to ensure that we are not going -- the ordinary Members and residents of the NWT and all residents of the NWT are not going to have a situation where they have to do without in some other area in order for us to ensure that things continue as usual, because the cost of living in the North is very high, and the residents of the NWT have been very patient even during this evacuation. And, you know, and we have to ensure that we continue the services as we know it. Thank you, Madam Chair.