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Mr. Speaker, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented the Northwest Territories and its residents, communities and businesses with many challenges.
I know all residents are now well into the ‘COVID-19 fatigue’ stage. We all want to see things back to normal and public health measures lifted.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by welcoming all my colleagues back to the Chamber for this sitting of the 19th Legislative Assembly. I look forward to providing updates on key issues, and mandate priorities, as well as hearing from Regular Members on issues important to residents over the course of the next seven sitting days.
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Good morning. Thank you for being here today. With me I have Health and Social Services Minister Julie Green, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Kami Kandola, and Territorial Medical Director Dr. AnneMarie Pegg.
The last few days have been what we have been preparing for as a territory since the beginning of the pandemic. As we have watched the third wave of COVID-19 challenge our neighbours to the south, and sadly, in recent weeks, our Northern neighbours in Yukon and Nunavut, it was inevitable that we would see our cases rise.
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Good morning and thank you, Premier Cochrane.
I would like to start off this morning by recognizing that the past couple of weeks have been difficult ones for NWT residents, particularly for Yellowknifers. Just as we were preparing to relax some of the public health measures, we had an increase in cases including the first confirmed cases of the COVID-19 UK variant.
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Good morning everyone.
NWT residents – you have done a remarkable job being resilient and helping fight COVID-19 the past 13 months.
Now we’ve hit a challenging period in our pandemic response.
Over the past three days we have announced eight confirmed COVID-19 infections at N.J. Macpherson School and declared an outbreak at this school. Local public health staff are currently working on identifying all contacts to these cases as well as the additional 11 probable cases.
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Today, I would like to update the Members on the progress we have made with our commitment to reduce the municipal funding gap and the additional funding support that has been provided for community governments.
This government committed to reducing the funding gap by $5 million, and we have made significant progress on this goal. This past fiscal year we added $2.594 million of ongoing funding for community governments.
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Monsieur le President, I am proud to celebrate the Francophone community of the Northwest Territories during the 23rd Annual Rendez-vous de la Francophonie. This nation-wide initiative, held every March, is an opportunity for Canada’s 10 million French-speakers and all Canadians to celebrate and promote French language and culture.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the priorities of our government is to make strategic infrastructure investments that connect communities, expand the economy, and reduce the cost of living. There are a number of initiatives being undertaken to support this priority, and one of those is to continue to seek ways to advance the construction of all-season roads such as the Mackenzie Valley Highway and the Tłı̨chǫ Highway.
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Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to provide an update to Members on additional sport funding, provided to community governments and sport organizations, through a partnership between the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and Sport Canada.
To date, the COVID-19 emergency support funding for sport organizations has provided a total of $1.846 million for communities and sport organizations in order to:
