Caroline Cochrane

I'm going to kind of guess the answer, because the last part of that got quiet and I couldn't really understand what the question was, but if the question is what we're actually looking for the federal government for supports, I'm going to go with that and you can correct me after. Again, it's, like I said, flexibility. The federal government, at each meeting that I meet with the Prime Minister, I'm told, we're at an opportunities gap to start with. We did not come in at the same place as our southern jurisdictions. I respect them. They are all fiercely fighting COVID-19, but they have the...

Mr. Speaker, you said to make our answers short. The answer is: Yes.

Things have been going really fast over the past few months, really fast the last few weeks, so I was under the impression that we had already done it. My commitment is, if we haven't already done it, that I will be providing those this week. I know my staff is listening. They're jumping on it right now.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, absolutely. Mandate letters were done, painfully, again. At the beginning of this Assembly, first of all, it was identified which Ministers would take over the priorities in the mandate, and from the mandate exercise we developed mandate letters. We had made a commitment that we would be sharing that with the standing committee. When we were almost ready, it was in my inbox waiting for me to give final, and COVID-19 hit. With COVID-19 we stepped back and we said, "Do we need to add in this COVID-19?" My first gut was just to add in COVID-19, you've got to do it...

Again, most people, when they talk about COVID-19, people have seen the economic impacts and people across the world, across Canada have been talking about economic recovery. I think we are one of the only jurisdictions that is talking about economic and social recovery. Perhaps because we are a small population, we had the benefit of actually seeing what we could do in a short amount of time. So I think that involving MLAs was a commitment that we made at the beginning of this session. It has been long. It does take a lot more time, but I made a commitment that it would not be Cabinet plus...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Looking for a plan of our response for COVID-19, absolutely, we are looking at it. However, I do want to be careful with that, because COVID-19 is still here. We are still experiencing things at a rapid rate. It has slowed down a bit, but, by the second wave, we are expecting that changes will come pretty rapidly.

We have been in the process now of changing our services, providing services that we needed and programs that we needed to accompany people, but some other things will need to be done. For example, the municipal and community government, EMO is the one that...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome all Members back to the continuation of our Second Sitting of the 19th Legislative Assembly.

Much has changed in the Northwest Territories and around the world since our sitting was interrupted by the declaration of a global COVID-19 pandemic this past March. Governments across Canada, including our own, have had to take swift and strong action to protect the health and safety of Canadians from this disease.

COVID-19 is a disease that no one in the world has a natural immunity to. There is no vaccine, and there is no effective anti-viral treatment for it...

I am not going to take other people's glory away, but I do know that the borrowing limit, our Minister of Finance has offered a briefing to standing committee on that, and I will let her do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is really hard to pick one. We have done a lot of economic revitalization programs and services that we provide to do for people. One thing I noticed is that, every time we had an initiative and went to the federal government and said, "Help, help our tourism industry, help our airlines, help our mines," there was somebody coming in behind.

I can't pick one. I'm going to have to pick two. There are two very critical things that I have to do, and I have been working on it. Every week, I meet with the Premiers, and every week, I meet with the Prime Minister. I've been saying, never has it been...

Yes. The mandate letters do identify some of the normal day-to-day operations that would be expected. It does focus on the mandate. There is a section on COVID-19, and there is room where we can actually tailor it. However, I must point out that every single duty that I expect from our Ministers will not be in that mandate letter. It is not possible. I would have to write a book to do that. There are other ways to make sure that Ministers do their jobs, such as why we are here. There is the BF system, where people ask, enquiries. There's walking into offices, talking to Ministers, and...