Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Related to my Member's statement, sometimes I think, Ottawa, I don't know who has been talking to them and telling them how it really is in the North, and so that was why my Member's statement was talking about what some of the people in the North almost consider as normal. Can the Premier tell us if the government is lobbying the federal government to give us more resources to deal with some of those issues that I mentioned in my Member's statement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will say that the Member has to be careful when she goes home to her riding. She might have offended a previous Minister who would say that every government in the Northwest Territories has lobbied hard to the federal government for additional money for the Northwest Territories, and I carry that forward. The reality is that every Assembly has asked for additional monies, and not only ourselves. We tend to partner as the three territories, with Nunavut and Yukon Territory, because we are all in the same situation.
Every government that I have known and that I have taken part in, and this government, too, has talked about our opportunity gaps. We are not even the same place as the South. We don't have the highway systems. We don't have the bandwidth. We don't have the health centres. We don't have the housing. We have been saying that for many years. Now that COVID-19 has hit us, we are going in stronger, so now we're talking about how we started at a deficit with our opportunity gap, and it would not be okay for us to go back 50 years from where we've come. That is the message we carry forward all the time, that we need additional money for the territories because of this. Every Minister sitting here is carrying that message, and I have to give credit to Nunavut and the Yukon Territory, who are all carrying the message, all three of us together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier, for your answer. There's another component to my question: we know we have talks of an election, maybe, in the fall, so do we have an idea of when we can expect more resources to flow north to help us, as a government, to tackle some of these issues?
How quickly they learn to be politicians. They know that there's an election coming up for the federal government. Actually, I have to say, in fairness to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has recognized, not only in this government, in the last Assembly, as well, that the territories are at a deficit. They have always given us extra money.
For example, for this Assembly, since COVID-19, I believe we got just over $23 million for the GNWT for our own COVID-19 expenses. We got $8.7 million for airlines. We got $35 million for businesses, and my understanding is that more will be coming. This is on top of the money that was given to every other jurisdiction, so the three territories actually have built strong relationships with the federal government, and we will carry that forward right through the election.
With COVID, like I said yesterday and today, it really highlighted a lot of our deficiencies, and I think, when we saw the money coming from the federal government flowing, it was almost like they are living the life that we have been living every day. That is our normal. That is why, all of a sudden, Ottawa opened up its pockets. I just want to make sure that they continue, the Ministers, and I know you've said it, but continue to press because, if we do have a federal election, we don't know how some of these things are going to change. Would the Premier commit to that, making sure that we are pushing hard, especially over these next few months until the fall?
Yesterday, I talked about being called names in here, some I don't accept and other ones I would accept. I haven't heard my name again being called as "easy." Talking about building relationships with the federal government is something that we are focusing on, positive relationships with them. It has proved to be fruitious. The other thing I am doing is also talking already about, and most Premiers are talking about, "What are we doing now?" We are starting to look at a recovery; but I have been talking about that since the beginning.
Every time we give something, like, for example, when we gave the extra money for childcare staff or childcare parents and stuff, and then, when we put people who were homeless into apartments, my conversations at the FMM table have been, "These are the right things to do, Mr. Prime Minister. How can you ask me to pull these back?" So I have already started the conversations and putting the bugs in. That is the message I will carry forward because, Mr. Speaker, it's right. How can I? If we have people who are homeless in housing, how can we put them on the street again? Those are not only questions that I ask because we need help. Those are the right questions to be putting at that table.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral question. Member for Frame Lake.
