Yeah, thanks, Mr. Speaker. I had a few comments, some of which I may have made in Committee of the Whole, but, yeah, I want the public to know that I'm in Edmonton with my family. I recognize the hardship that the current situation has caused 70 percent of the Northwest Territories residents, but I believe that we need to continue to focus on firefighting and saving the communities, and I want to thank the firefighters, the contractors, the volunteers for the work that they're doing. Of course, I also want to thank the Albertans that have shown us tremendous support here in Alberta and thank the provincial government for all that they've done to support us. And I've already said I think there is going to be a time and a place to review and question what happened during the emergency and the response, but I don't think today is that day. And I think we need to pull together and focus on supporting those that are protecting our communities and helping our constituents here in the south. So I will support the supplementary appropriation, but in my view, clearly, it's not enough. This is an interim step, and I think the Finance Minister also recognizes that. She talked about bringing forward another supplementary appropriation if we get to a sitting in September that will deal with perhaps more of the emergency response side.
So I am worried about what this bill does not contain or what this bill does not authorize at least in terms of spending and, you know, that the Finance Minister did say that the firefighting costs, at least under the current arrangement with the federal government for disaster assistance, are not covered. And that's we we're not going to change that policy, that approach from the federal government unilaterally. That's something that's going to require some work, and I want to thank Cabinet for the work that they've started to do on that but also recognizing that if the vault the doors are opened for the Northwest Territories, I'm sure British Columbia will be right behind and other jurisdictions across the country that have had, you know, a horrific season of fires.
So I am worried about what this particular supplementary appropriation will do in terms of our Fiscal Responsibility Policy compliance and debt, and that's not to begrudge the firefighters or not supporting them in any way, but obviously these things do cause some financial implications and those need to be carefully considered and managed.
I think this is going to have implications, not just for the rest of this Assembly but the next Assembly, in terms of what infrastructure, what sort of projects should receive priority, and in my humble opinion, as I've always said in this Assembly, housing continues and should be the highest priority for our infrastructure and, of course, I think now there's going to be greater recognition and understanding that climate adaptation in response to the climate emergency also needs a lot of work as does telecommunications and making sure that we have access to and the same level of services as people in southern Canada and to make sure that if our future emergencies, we have ways to actually better inform people in a timely fashion. So that's going to mean that some infrastructure projects will probably fall off the radar, and I don't think that's a bad thing, but we need to focus on the things that matter and that count for our people moving forward.
I am a bit worried too that even I think some of the evacuation costs are not going to be recoverable from the federal government unless there's strictly damage to property and buildings and so on, but. So I think some of the evacuation costs will not be recoverable from the federal government. I do want to thank Cabinet for bringing forward the evacuation transportation transport assistance program, but it's not enough. We did have discussions about this. I think it the amount needs to be increased from $750 to a much greater level, and other Members have started to talk about that. I also think that the scope of the program needs to be broadened as well. Other Members have talked about how people paid out of their own pockets so that they could fly on commercial flights to avoid putting stress on the necessary government evacuation flights. And I think those people deserve some consideration and need to be treated fairly as those that drove out. I'm also aware of people that did take the government flights out to southern locations and, in some cases, were not able to access services or whatever. So I think we've got to find a fairer way to treat everybody who's been evacuated, and I think the current program as envisioned is a start but it needs some more work.
I don't think I really have much else to say so many of my concerns are about, Mr. Speaker, about what's not in this bill. I will support the bill, the money moving forward, but there's a lot more work that needs to be done in preparation for the supplementary appropriation that will likely land on everybody's desk in September, and I encourage my Cabinet colleagues to work with us as Regular MLAs as they did during this emergency and I want to, you know, congratulate them for those efforts and encourage them to continue to do work with us because we all have to work together in the interests of protecting and saving our communities across the whole NWT. So once again, I want to thank my colleagues in Cabinet, the Regular MLAs, the firefighters, and everybody that's working so hard to protect our communities, and people here in Alberta as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
