Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier. I ask if all possibilities were looked at prior to the creation of the secretariat with the bottom line in mind. I would like to reiterate that we had a state of emergency, which has since been removed but currently still have the public health emergency. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I had stated earlier, the formation of the secretariat was because there were multiple departments that were working on different initiatives. Oftentimes the right hand was trying to figure out what the left hand was doing, so the secretariat formed, I think it was just about a month ago, within that. When the secretariat formed, Mr. Speaker, we were hit with the increases of the cases, the second wave coming in southern Canada. We did not have a lot of time to do a lot of consultation, and our communication was not the best on that. We have spoken to address that before.
Since that meeting, though, I have reached out to Indigenous governments. We are still in that process. On September 30th, I did meet with the Indigenous governments. There were eight of them in total. I had strong support, verbal support, that they actually said, "We support the creation of the secretariat," once we explained the aspects of it. The NWT Metis Nation, Gwich'in Tribal Council, Acho Dene, Akaitcho Dene, Salt River First Nations, North Slave Metis Alliance, and the Sahtu Secretariat firmly said, "We support the secretariat." There was one other one that wanted more information, so I will not mention their name. They have not given me concrete. Since then, I have also met with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, who also have given me strong support for creation of the secretariat, understanding that we needed to have better coordination in what we are doing. I have also met with other members, Chief Bonnetrouge, Nahanni Butte Dene Band and Dene Nation and the Dehcho First Nations, but then again, at this point, we have not got a solid. We have got soft supports, but they have not said, "We 100 percent support it," concrete.
We are doing our work working with our municipal governments, as well; we have met with them; the business community, we have met with them; and the Indigenous governments. Options, Mr. Speaker? I wish we had more time. This pandemic hit us really quickly at the beginning of this government. When we have had a chance to breathe, almost as soon as we could take a breath, the second wave was starting in southern Canada. Time has not been on our side. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to thank the Premier for her answer and for listing the First Nations that she had been in contact with. I certainly do not want to undermine the leadership's decisions from each of those regions, but my question had been if all possibilities, scenarios, were looked at prior to the creation, like having a think tank how we could do it. In my Member's statement, I had listed. We have up to 5,000, and now I am hearing close to 6,000 employees. Why did we not canvass? I am trying to get to the bottom line here.
We are paying an extra $87 million over four years. That is extra money for just 150 positions, which I believe we could have created from within our bureaucracy, our bloated workforce, and re-profiled the positions. I keep stating the state of emergency and the public health emergency, which probably is a strong tool to get you to direct those positions, something similar to what we have been hearing on the radio lately about the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who invoked the War Measures Act back in the day. That is why I keep harping on the state of emergency and this emergency that we have in place. This can direct us to do those things, and this is hurting our bottom line.
I kept stating in my statements that our small communities are suffering. There are lots of issues with housing. I don't want to repeat myself, but there are a lot of social problems there. I am trying to help out this government of why we don't go that route to look at savings to the bottom line in our budget. I am wondering if I could get an answer to that. Further to that, it's not too late to start recruiting from within. I don't mean this out of disrespect, and I really want to stress that. I certainly do not believe we need to pull retirees out of retirement to continue the work of the GNWT. Will the Premier look at using the current GNWT workforce to create this task force?
I would love to be able to say that we will stay status quo and we will use the current workforce. That is what we were doing at the beginning of the pandemic. I would have fought back and said that was the right way to do it, except I spoke to the employees who told me they were burning out. They were working way too much overtime. They were working seven days a week. It was not sustainable. It came from their mouths, saying that the current structure, the old structure, was not sustainable.
We do not want to spend a whole bunch of money, so we are looking at -- I can't remember the number. At the beginning, all of them were redeployed, but I do know that well over half of them right now are still redeployed from departments, people who are committed to helping with the health and safety. It's not because they need extra work. It's that they believe the cause is necessary. We do have a lot who are redeployed wit*hin departments. We have new hires, as well. Sixty-six of the 150 positions are going to be outside of Yellowknife. That means 66 positions outside of Yellowknife that are actually new jobs for community members.
Mr. Speaker, we speak in this House so often about the need for jobs in small communities. This is one option. It should not be riding on the health and safety, but it is an option for people. Again, I would love to have looked at it different ways, but it is coming from the staff and the people. Now, the Indigenous governments are saying that, as well. We need to have coordination within this, and this needs to be our priority. I keep going back to when I was fighting to look at different structures. Honestly, one Grand Chief told me and it stuck in my head to this day: how much money is one life worth? Mr. Speaker, that will probably rest with me until the end of this pandemic, and I ask MLAs the same question. Mr. Speaker, to all MLAs, how much money is one life worth?
I understand the federal government's partial contribution is welcome, but I do not see the guarantees for further funding in the coming years. T7*-his may be redundant on cutting other programs and services to keep feeding this secretariat. Will the Premier commit to revamping and looking at cost-saving ways to form this task force?
Absolutely, we're looking at cost-saving ways. That's why the secretariat was formed, to get better coordination, to be able to see what we're doing, to look at ways that we can actually be more efficient, more effective in our service delivery. I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, that, of the $31 million I believe it is, around what we're looking for in this supplemental that's coming forward, I believe it's around $23 million that is already funded from the federal government. The federal government in their Speech from the Throne identified the maintaining of COVID-19 supports as a huge priority in their government. We're holding them to that.
In my last meeting with the federal government, I emphasized the needs of the North and how vulnerable we were because we don't have the health supports that we need in every single community. Prime Minister Trudeau promised me on that call, and he has followed through, that he does care about the North, and he would get in touch with us and look at the additional money that we need. We are in the process. It is just being finalized this weekend actually, that we will actually be asking for more money for the secretariat. I do take to heart that the Prime Minister does hear us and is concerned about the North.
As well, again, since we formed the secretariat, we are looking at cost-saving measures. We are meeting with the municipalities, the Indigenous governments next week, and looking at isolation centres and what we could do with that, options of how we can afford that. That's the biggest expense within the secretariat is for isolation centres, critical for smaller communities, critical for our people. If we can find ways to get that down and still provide for the health and safety, then, we shall do that.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Final supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi to the Premier for her actions and work moving forward. I know you state that the Prime Minister does care for the North, but all the funding to cover COVID issues does not come from the federal government alone. It has been left up to the territorial government to find funds from other programs and services to continue the secretariat. I'm just wondering the scenario that I had before. If we had taken employees from within, this would have helped our bottom line tremendously. I'm just wondering, what is the COVID secretariat hoping to accomplish or change that will see a noticeable improvement over how we're currently delivering it from within? Mahsi.
What the COVID secretariat is hoping to accomplish, I stated before, is better coordination, more transparency, better communication to the communities, and the opportunity to be able to look at efficiencies and effectiveness within our services. I'll give an example, Mr. Speaker. I've been asked about the border patrols down by Providence-Hay River. It's a great question. The reality, and the reason that we're looking at different things and didn't go out through normal processes is we didn't have time.
Mr. Speaker, the secretariat was only formed, I think, three weeks to a month ago, and before that, it was individual departments. Normal procurement processes would have helped, but there was fluctuation within departments, et cetera. It was until the COVID secretariat formed and took over, at that point, we said we need to have facilities for our workers and, therefore, we're rushing. We got the Providence one, and we're doing the other up North, as well. Those areas, if we had it under one structure as the secretariat, ideally -- I hope it doesn't last another year, but if does last another year, we would be better prepared. We would be making sure that we had services and supports in place all season round. That's just one example of how we will actually be more efficient as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Honourable Premier. Colleagues, before we continue, I just want to remind everyone to keep your questions short and also the answers because we're not even midway through here and we still have six people to go. Our time is 20 minutes. Just a reminder for the future. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
