Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While my colleague was asking questions of the Premier, I overheard an assumption that the mandate letters would be made public, and I'm wondering if the Premier can confirm whether she intends to make those public or not. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Honourable Premier.
Mr. Speaker, you said to make our answers short. The answer is: Yes.
I'd like to start off first by congratulating the GNWT on its Emerging Wisely document. It was well-prepared and well-communicated to the public. The document sets out for residents what they need to do to move from the lockdown phase, and to loosening of restrictions, and being able to interact again with their loved ones. I believe that, to accompany this document, we need an economic recovery plan that identifies the financial supports and programs the GNWT intends to put in place to combat COVID-19, or as businesses attempt to combat COVID-19. My question for the Premier is: what does she see as the most important thing the GNWT needs to do to recover the economy while moving out of the lockdown phase?
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 so critical. We have been saying this since the beginning that this House was built, but never is it so critical, base plus funding. Per capita is not working. All my Ministers are carrying that message strong. The other thing is flexibility. Do not put us in a box because a lot of your programs, people in the territories are still not accessing. Those are the two things, federally, I've been doing, so that's important.
The other thing that's important is to listen to the stakeholders, and that's why we're doing the groups. My Minister of ITI did a great job, putting out surveys to all of the businesses, trying to find out what they say. It is inappropriate for us as Members of this House to define what the future will look like for all residents unless we hear from the residents. That, again, is my commitment.
The Premier alluded to the federal government in her response and, over the course of the pandemic, we have seen the federal government really crack open its purse. Given how close we are to our federal borrowing limit and the fact that, really, the territorial financing formula doesn't necessarily work for our territory, what can we expect to see this year to address both of those financing supports from the GNWT?
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 infrastructure we don't have, so I've been an advocate at asking for additional. We started with an opportunity gap. This COVID-19 can put us way back, if we're not careful. I do believe that our Prime Minister is hearing us and supporting us.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary, member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question was in regard to the territorial financing formula, and also the borrowing limit. Thank you.
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.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
