Regular members of the 19th Legislative Assembly dressed down the premier over the creation of the Covid-19 Secretariat during a committee meeting Thursday evening.
The meeting came several hours after Russell Neudorf, Secretariat chief and associate deputy minister of the Department of Health and Social Services, provided a technical briefing for the 150-employee, $86-million organization.
Caitlin Cleveland, MLA for Kam Lake, was the first member to address the committee, and opened by saying that at the beginning of the 19th Legislative Assembly, cabinet allocated $25 million for "22 priorities that would change the lives of Northerners and the Covid Secretariat now has $86 million in order to deal with the response to Covid-19.
"What I'm hearing from constituents is whether the GNWT has a little bit of Covid-19 tunnel vision right now."
Cleveland questioned whether the substantial allotment was sustainable and how long it would be until the GNWT reaches its federal borrowing limit.
Ron Bonnetrouge, MLA for Deh Cho, said many NWT residents are unhappy about the formation of the Secretariat and think that the investment could be better spent areas like alleviating homelessness and providing housing in the communities.
"(Our response) seems to be sufficient as our territory doesn't have a single case of the virus. Maybe we could also tighten up at the border? I also suggest we provide ventilation units to all of the small communities' health centres for emergency purposes. That would be proactive for the small communities in case they can't get medevac in there. That could allow residents who travel outside the territory to self-isolate at home.
"The large provinces that have the most Covid cases don't even have a Secretariat in place. It's working for them. I'm not in favour of the Secretariat. Let's be prudent with our money."
Rylund Johnson, MLA for Yellowknife North, said he doesn't like "this rhetoric that the ($86 million) is not new money. This is now becoming a referendum on our total Covid response. The roll out has been problematic."
Johnson asked if the millions of dollars slated for the Secretariat could be better spent on improving health services in small communities so that people could self-isolate in their home communities instead of in the four isolation hubs of Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith and Inuvik.
He also said he wants to see better rapid testing capacity to reduce self-isolation times.
"If we can't use our rapid testing to shorten people's isolation times, especially those who are spending the remaining years of their life in a consistent state of self-isolation, then I don't know why we've even got a rapid test."
Rocky Simpson, MLA for Hay River South, said details of the Secretariat have to be more effectively communicated to the public. He also asked about the precise budget for the new organization.
"How much are we actually going to bear with respect to this new Secretariat?"
The only member in the meeting to openly support the Secretariat was Kevin O'Reilly, MLA for Frame Lake. O'Reilly said he supports the funding allocation and the continuation of all the services to manage the pandemic.
"The issue is with the staffing of the positions. Most of the people in the positions now are redeployed. What job security will people have if there's an early end to the pandemic? Will they go back to their home departments?," O'Reilly asked.
Vaccine would dissolve Secretariat: Cochrane
Premier Caroline Cochrane said the expenditures of the Secretariat are fixed costs needed to keep residents safe.
She repeated several times that $2.7 million for this fiscal year has been allocated to coordinate Covid services, "which will give us more coordination, better management and better oversight of what we're doing to address health and safety in the pandemic. But we're willing work with the committee. I'm open to any recommendations to provide better services."
The Secretariat jobs would be term positions and they would have positions after Covid is addressed, the Premier said. Some might need backfilling.
Cochrane said she recognizes that larger jurisdictions in Canada don't have Secretariats. However, she noted that they also have larger sources of funding than the NWT and yet "more than 1,000 people are getting diagnosed with Covid every day in the south."
If a Covid vaccine is found, Cochrane said she would be "more than glad to dissolve this Secretariat."
Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek said the GNWT's borrowing limit has been increased to $1.8 billion, and if projections remain unchanged it would be near that limit by the end of this assembly's mandate.
"I'm hopeful that we'll be able, not only through the Covid Secretariat, to find efficiencies and streamlining but also with the evolution of our response be able to find better ways of addressing our response that doesn't require us to invest as aggressively as we have," Wawzonek said.
Chief public health officer Dr. Kami Kandola expressed sympathy with the difficulties voiced by MLAs.
"These are all issues that I'm willing to take seriously. Over the next several weeks, I'll see how I can look at our current travel restrictions and self-isolation rules," she said.
Sarah Cook, outgoing territorial medical director, tried to strike a positive note in explaining how improvements in virtual care reduce the need for medical travel outside the NWT and the associated self-isolation.
She also noted the recent enhancements in rapid testing capacity, with the BioFire device at Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife. It's able to process results in just over 20 hours, and 551 tests with that machine have been completed in the last 15 days.
Secretariat technical briefing
More than half of the funding (54 per cent) in the first year of the new Covid-19 Coordinating Secretariat would go towards isolation centres, Neudorf told reporters during the technical briefing on Thursday morning.
Some $17.2 million would be allocated to the centres for the first eight months of the Secretariat into 2021.
Just 10 per cent, or $3.1 million, would go towards border compliance, out of the $31.6 million slated for 2020-2021. Nine per cent, or $2.9 million would be for Directorate costs.
A portion of the $14.5 million in federal Safe Restart funding, recently announced by MP Michael McLeod would cover some of the Secretariat budget.
The GNWT also hopes the federal government will provide more funding for the new agency through specific territorial funding from Ottawa.
More funding would be sought through a supplementary budget request to MLAs after the legislative assembly resumes on Oct. 15. But if they don't approve the funding, it would be drawn from other GNWT departments, said Neudorf.
"(The Secretariat) is not a foregone conclusion yet," Neudorf said. "If that supplemental bill comes forward and isn't approved, then we would need to continue to draw on the resources from departments. And all departments would need to manage those budgets within their own budget and do what's required to fit within that budget. It would be a significant complication as they try to get back to their normal operation. So we're very optimistic that the MLAs will understand the need for it and what the government is trying to achieve."
It wasn't made clear in the briefing how much the government would ask MLAs to approve. NNSL Media has requested that information and is awaiting a response.
Neudorf admitted the briefing was organized because the government hadn't succeeded in explaining to residents and businesses how the Secretariat would benefit them and operate. He reiterated that the purpose of the Secretariat is to streamline the Covid response into a single organization to improve efficiency.
However, following Neudorf's presentation, many reporters were left asking similar questions about the budget and staffing.
In an email follow-up later sent to reporters, Mike Westwick, spokesperson for Secretariat, said 86 of the 150 positions had already been filled, including the management team. Westwick provided further details in a COVID Secretariat budget and job list outline.
"Most of (them) were people who have transitioned to the new Secretariat’s structure and were already doing the work in things like enforcement, 8-1-1, border and airport operations, and isolation centres," he said. "The number of new hires is still to be determined as we are still in transition. Departments will make decisions based on business continuity needs. Some may choose to backfill. Departments will make choices on that front. But a key objective of the GNWT is to get back to regular business, and that means having the staff power to deliver. All of these positions are being moved under the Secretariat."
The total number of those positions "add up to 140," Westwick said. The 10 new positions will be in corporate services.
