Masi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] The COVID secretariat, I have questions. I had made a previous statement. There is a lot of information that the Northwest Territories do not know about. It is indicated that they will hire 150 new positions and $86 million towards it. [Translation ends]. Mr. Speaker, I wish to question the Premier regarding the new COVID-19 Coordinating Secretariat that will cost us approximately $87 million total today, today's cost. Mr. Speaker, the COVID secretariat is the government's original cost-effective COVID response in favour of burdensome bureaucracy that promises no improvement at vastly increased expense. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier please list other options that she considered before deciding on the costly expansion of our government to form another bureaucracy in the Northwest Territories? Masi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely. The COVID secretariat was not something that just came up and we said we are going to have a new agency because we had nothing better to do. It came out of trying to do the best we could. Again, when COVID-19 struck, every single department -- and again, I give nothing but credit to those employees who stood up and said, "I will help to try to save our residents of the Northwest Territories." They were doing it off the sides of their desks, some of them doing that full-time and trying to do their normal jobs off the side of the desk. It was unsustainable. Again, I know that I heard that we did not talk about MLAs, we did not talk to the Indigenous governments.
As soon as COVID-19 hit, Mr. Speaker, we met regularly. EIA met regularly, every single week, with the Indigenous governments. We had weekly meetings every Friday, and I know that the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs met regularly with the municipal governments, as well, because I went to some of those meetings, as well, Mr. Speaker. Every meeting we went to, Mr. Speaker, they said, "Provide more. We are scared. Please help us. We want firmer, more border controls. We want more isolation. We do not want them in our communities. We need to have PPE. We are scared. Tell us what to do. Give us a connection." We tried to accommodate, Mr. Speaker, and so, yes, the money did rack up. However, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about safety.
Then again, Mr. Speaker, when I went to the airport -- I still owe an MLA some money for masks -- to pick up some masks, and I had the opportunity to talk to the border patrol at the airports, they were very humble, but they said to me, "Premier, we cannot keep it up. It's not sustainable. We are working seven days a week. Sometimes, we are working double shifts trying to do it." I heard that, Mr. Speaker. I think that the role of this government is really to make sure that the health and safety of people comes first, and I take that seriously, my role in that.
The secretariat is not something that came up because it was something to do. We have not even had time to think of things to do. We have just been go, go, go. The secretariat came up because the Indigenous governments and the people of the Northwest Territories were asking for more supports, and the people who were providing those supports said they could not do it. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, businesses were saying "Open up the GNWT." We had pressure that was saying, "Use your resources. Keep the borders controlled. Keep the isolation," but, "Get back to business." We can't do both, so we make a choice. If the secretariat does not go through within this supplementary, we go back to making a choice, Mr. Speaker: do we have business as usual, continue with these mandates, or do we focus on the secretariat, on the isolation and the border patrols? Those are tough choices I have to make. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This is an area that obviously a lot of concern at the community level and public. I did not hear any support from the general public or Aboriginal governments to create an $87-million bureaucracy, $87 million that could be better well spent in housing, lack of teachers, special needs, all those issues at the community level, a real issue, Mr. Speaker. It boggles me that we are creating this "Taj Mahal" bureaucracy. It's unthinkable. Mr. Speaker, this was not part of 22 mandates. Mr. Speaker, did we engage the public prior to the prospect of creating another form of bureaucracy for the COVID secretariat?
The Member is absolutely right: the secretariat was not in our priorities or mandate, and COVID-19 was not in our priorities or the mandate. I think, if it was, we might have changed our priorities and our mandates. However, we have what we have, so we go forward. Mr. Speaker, again I take ownership because some things we were trying to get off, we were trying to do, everybody was scrambling to make sure we had services in place, and we knew that some of the services on our side were breaking down. Things were coming really fast. The structures were not as good as we were used to. I made the wrong assumption and assumed on the other side that the structures were still the same, so we did offer to standing committee -- in fairness, it was buried between a letter that said, "This is what we're doing, if you'd like to see more about how we need to reorganize the structure." I take ownership for that; that's true, but we did offer one. It said, "We don't have a lot of stuff. We don't need this briefing." When it came back to me from my staff and they said, "We don't need the briefing," I said, "That doesn't make sense. How can they not need the briefing?"
Again, I would say it was buried in a letter, and I think it was misinformed. So we sent another offer to standing committee. At that time, standing committee accepted it and we presented. The normal process back in the day used to be that we would go to standing committee; we would provide the documents; they would give us feedback; we'd take it back; we would work on it; we would go back to standing committee, give the details, give and take; and then we'd go public. We didn't have the benefit of that. The first instance of going to standing committee, it was live, so we didn't have a very good communications plan. We didn't go to the public yet out of respect, due process, is that we usually work with our MLAs first. Again, I take ownership on our side, but I also say that we tried.
"Tried" is not good enough. The Minister of Finance made a statement earlier today talking about not directly benefiting all NWT businesses. We can have direct benefits to all NWT businesses if we are open-minded to boost our economy. I'll give you an example. There are 3,000 businesses throughout the Northwest Territories. Out of the $87 million, $87 million in my language is [English translation not available]. That is a lot of money. Seriously, just imagine granting $29,000 to each business in the Northwest Territories. That will cover all Northwest Territories businesses to boost our economy. That's what we should be focusing on, not this secretariat. MACA has been doing well since March. Creating another 150 positions; the Premier is saying, "It's not new positions." Obviously, it's new positions, newly created bureaucracy. This, I don't think, came in August or September. I'm sure it's been talked about, but just the lack of engagement and consultation with the public just boggles my mind.
The next question I do have is: how does the Premier reconcile this massive expense with an urgent, unfulfilled needs of our business sector that I spoke to earlier, that can boost our economy, that can do a lot more than what we are proposing here as a government?
I said that you will see that the supps will be coming later, and if the Members don't decide to support it, then we have to go back to doing what we can. Yes, we could give $29,000, I think the Member said, to every business and not have border controls, not have isolation units, not give out PPE to our students, to our kids at most highest risk. We can do all that, but does it make sense? COVID-19 is raging in the South. They're in their second wave. The numbers every day are increasing. Should we not put our isolation units and our border controls and our enforcement and our PPE for people first? That's the question. If MLAs think that I should stop everything else that the secretariat is doing and give $29,000 to each business, tell me that.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary. Member for Monfwi.
Masi, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, I am not getting anywhere with this. The Premier and the government need to start listening to the people of the Northwest Territories and the Members around the table, here. We are here to make a difference. We have identified 22 mandates. We are not here to dictate and say, "This is good for you." I, for one, feel that our Premier is doing that to our Northwest Territories, that this is good for you and we need to do this. I totally disagree with that process. Again, I'd like to refer back. This Assembly identified 22 priorities to be pursued over the next four-year term, priorities such as increasing graduation rates, which is badly needed. It's a huge challenge in our communities, small isolated communities especially. Increasing affordable housing is another one. I can go on and on with the list of the 22, but I do have a last question: what consideration has the Premier given to the effect of this $87-million expenditure on the prospects of advancing those critical priorities? How will the Premier account for these massive expenditures if they set back those 22 priority areas? Masi, Mr. Speaker.
I hear the MLA. We do have priorities that we have to get on with. We have normal business that we have to get on with. When we first started with the COVID response, you're right, we did not go to the public when COVID-19 hit and the Chief Public Health Officer said we're shutting things down, we're tightening up. We didn't have time to do proper consultation with the public, to do proper consultation with Indigenous governments, municipal governments, all applicable stakeholders. We need to have those border controls now. I am all about stakeholder engagement. Ask any Minister here. I say it all the time, but in this case, we did not have time to do proper consultation. The best we could do was ask all the Indigenous and municipal governments to come together and work as governments together to define how we went forward.
Yes, there are other priorities. At this point, we have not said we're cutting any from the other priorities. That hasn't been a discussion that I've heard at our tables. We are still on track. We're still trying to do business as normal. Again, if that is the reason that they will say, "Take her out," then take me out because health and safety is priority. I have an obligation as the Premier of the Northwest Territories to make sure that the health and safety of our residents comes first, and I will hold that to my end. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
