A motion to remove $5.25 million from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment's (ECE) budget was shot down at the legislative assembly on Wednesday.

Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins moved the motion, citing Aurora College's decision to close its community learning centres, but wanting to keep the more than $7 million appropriated towards them, as the reason behind his decision.

But since the program is staying open until June, Hawkins factored in the cost of keeping the centres open until then, he explained.

"What I did was I took one quarter of the year off, and that's the difference of how we get from $7 million to $5,250,000," he said in the legislative assembly on Wednesday.

Hawkins added that feels uncomfortable leaving that money on the table. 

"You can't cut a program and keep the money," he said, adding that should Aurora College come up with a new plan for educating adults in smaller communities, they could keep that money.

"It's not about just trying to take the money away from the department," said Hawkins. "It's about taking away from money without a purpose, and then it will just be spent. And if anyone tries to tell us it won't be treated as some type or form of slush fund, or special project fund or unaccountable fund, we will never see the details of this regardless of how many promises and commitments we get here today."

Yellowknife North MLA Shauna Morgan and Frame Lake MLA Julian Morse joined with the seven cabinet ministers to defeat the motion.

Morgan said she wouldn't support the motion because she fears that money would go towards a much larger project, like a road, and end up being a drop in the bucket. 

"We need to keep it in the ECE pot and make sure that it's used for literacy and community learning the way it was intended to," she said. "I think we need to keep it with ECE in order for them to make that turnaround [to provide adult education] as short as possible once they figure out who else might be willing to step up and offer these services."

ECE Minister Caitlin Cleveland said the motion would take away more than $5 million from the main estimates for ECE and does not speak to Aurora College specifically. 

"If this money is gone, there is no ability for ECE or Aurora College to do the plans that they are putting together as far as shifting from what is happening right now," she said.

After the motion was defeated, Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart published a post on Facebook reading "... as long as cabinet has their supporters in line, the entire process is little more than accountability theatre while backroom deals are being made."

That didn't sit well with Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek, who called out Testart for that post during Thursday's sitting.

"This social media post creates a threat that if MLAs do not vote with certain other MLAs, or if they choose to speak directly to cabinet members, there may accusations on some type of social media," Wawzonek argued.

Testart countered Wawzonek's claim citing his freedom of speech. 

"There's been no arresting of her ability to speak at this house (or) in this chamber. There has been no arresting of her ability to walk through the front doors and do her job here. There's been no direct accusations made in that post (or) certainly about any member in question," he said.

Hawkins sided with Testart's remarks, whereas Premier R.J. Simpson took Wawzonek's side.

Thompson said he would consider all arguments made and would come to a decision at a later date.