Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to tell the House of the concern about the activities of Patterson's Sawmill. On March 3, I asked the Minister, the Honourable John Pollard, about the purchase of the Patterson Sawmill in Hay River and he stated, and I quote: "It was not a government decision, although it is my responsibility and I will take full responsibility for it."

I asked him about the number of trees required to run this mill, he indicated it was six to eight million board feet per year, and later on indicated that it would take about 10,000 to 12,000 trees per million board feet.

You are looking at approximately 96,000 trees to be cut this year. I am concerned because you stated very clearly that no logging would occur in the Liard/Nahanni Valley unless the communities and the people of that area are in agreement and in full cooperation.

I am very concerned because the Patterson Sawmill filed an application for a land use permit to cut timber in the area traditionally used by the Dene of Jean Marie River. There was no prior consultation. This application contradicts the assurance that the Minister provided to this House on March 9.

The people of that region are opposed to letting the Patterson Development Corporation operation into that area. There are a number of reasons for the opposition, it is a traditional hunting and trapping area, and one of the main points is that the Patterson Sawmill was previously in that area, before the development corporation took over, and the previous logging in the area was extremely dissatisfactory because of their logging methods. The job, the clean up, a lot of it was left behind.

There is some concern that this may happen again. The area in question, Deep Lake and McGill Lake, are the head waters of Jean Marie River and it is very harmful to fish from the lakes there, for the people around there.

The Jean Marie River Council has passed a resolution against this application. What I would like to say is that I am representing my constituency here, and am opposed to this application.