Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Just going back to my Member's statement, the community came together during COVID, and a lot of communities in my constituency, they worked together. They did do work to protect themselves because of the highway going in. Just to give you a little context for the House, on a letter dated May 25, 2020, from Madam Premier's office to my office, there was a request made for funding to fund the checkpoint going into Deninu Kue. They did take the steps to protect themselves. In my humble opinion, that's the GNWT's job. They should be coming in and protecting our small communities. Further to that, in this letter, the letter stated that they will not fund this important safety measure. For me, this is not okay. My question to Madam Premier: can she explain why this funding request was denied? Marsi cho.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason that we had to look at it carefully and, at this point, said "no" is because we have our own enforcement at the borders. There are some liability issues. The municipalities do not have authority to do that. We haven't come down hard on them because we understand the fear that they are facing. We're trying to support them, but we also have to recognize that there are legalities with that. The other major thing that has come with that and the request for funding is that Municipal and Community Affairs has been collecting the debts, the monies, that has been spent by community governments on the COVID-19. However, the Canadian Association of Municipalities put in a huge ask for $10 billion to the federal government. Until we hear, that $10 billion would be divided amongst all of the municipalities in Canada, so we're waiting for the federal government to hear if they're going to fund that because it would be inappropriate. All along, the GNWT has been trying to work with the federal government, so it would not be appropriate for us to fund the municipalities here when they're already asking for more money and then having to figure out: do we claw that back? What does that look like? We are lobbying the federal government, as well, that municipalities need money, but we're waiting to see if the federal government rolls out with that $10 billion bailout for the municipalities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier for that response. I'm just going back to the letter, too. There is a reference there that is a roadblock. It's not a roadblock. I said to the media before this is like a checkpoint. It's a self-isolation measure. Even though we have our security checkpoints at the borders, and I don't mean to point, sorry, they're still bypassing our four major centres where people are supposed to self-isolate. They're still getting into the small communities. These checkpoints in the small communities work. For my next question, just from hearing her: can Madam Premier commit to funding, or even partially funding, these checkpoint initiatives if the federal funding does not pan out?
Some communities are working in partnership a little bit differently than other communities. Some communities are working with their Indigenous governments on their checkpoints. Indigenous governments did get money. They got money from the federal government for COVID-19 with flexibility on being able to use it. We want to help our municipal governments. It's not a matter of if we want to help them or not. We do want to help them. We are waiting for the $10 billion ask to see what that happens with. We're still collecting the debts from our municipal governments, as well. We're looking at other options. We're actually looking with some flexibility, perhaps. The ECE program has a small community employment fund. The municipalities could look at adding that into their plans if they were willing to do that. All departments, including ECE, have been very flexible during the COVID-19 to try to make sure that our programs meet the needs of people.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions, Member for Frame Lake.
