Mr. Speaker, I understand the sport hunters that come up here are given clear understanding of the type of animal that they can hunt. It's usually limited to mature male animals, and there's a quota on the number that they can legally harvest. The sport hunter operators that take them out are obliged to monitor that. While we don't have enforcement officers out with every sport hunter, we do try to monitor, as much as we can, what the sport hunters are doing. There is good cooperation from the hunting outfitters in this regard. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think the department had taken some steps with the outfitters to make some arrangements this past season to take the meat of animals harvested by sport hunters to the nearest community and distribute it there to the residents. How well it is done, I am not aware. I can tell the Member that I know there was an effort made by the department to fly meat out where it was economic, convenient and possible to do so and to pass out the meat to the neighbouring communities. I can ask the department to give Members a status report on the success of that initiative, which I knew they were preparing to get into in the spring. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of outfitters in the Northwest Territories. As the Member said, the licenses to operate were issued some years ago. I know the question of whether the people of the north, particularly aboriginal people, should have the first right to purchase and own these has come up, particularly during the course of claims negotiations. In fact, one group, for sure, has right of first refusal, and both regional claims have those clauses in their agreements.

How people could get involved in monitoring these is a good question. What I understand is that these operators go into the mountains or out in the barren lands, wherever they operate, and they know that one of the conditions of their license is that they operate within the laws set up by the Government of the Northwest Territories. We know that none of them condone any illegal hunting or any infraction of the laws that govern these provisions.

Some of these operators, as well, hire northern people, aboriginal people, as guides and workers so there is some assurance for local people that what is going on out there is fully within the laws, and the outfits are run by good, honest, hard-working people. I have no specific suggestions to make about how to reassure people that these operations are not breaking any laws. I have to believe they are working within the provisions and laws they are bound by. When they come out with their trophies, there are tags that are bound to the antlers and other trophies that come out. Those are the ways we can reassure ourselves that things are being done in a rational manner. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the claims negotiations process is used as one way in which people can get involved in outfitting, or else give themselves assurance that the ownership of such things in their areas will certainly come to their table at some time, especially if there is change of ownership contemplated. Having said that, there are a couple of other possibilities.

One is, if the community wants to look at it as an economic development initiative, the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism is more than willing -- or if he isn't, he will be --

---Laughter

to meet with communities and regions to discuss their interest in areas like this. Apparently, he has recently written to the chief of Wrigley to indicate if Wrigley wishes to discuss interest in the Mackenzie mountains outfitting business, that they would be prepared to meet with the community to do that. Strictly from a harvester's point of view, if the people of Simpson, for instance, wish to discuss how they may become more knowledgeable and involved in the operations of these outfitters, and if they wish to take a more hands-on approach, the Department of Renewable Resources will be very happy to set up a meeting to discuss ways in which people may wish to pursue that objective. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this question is for the Minister of Transportation. I would like to thank the Minister for his response earlier today. I'm happy to hear that the Department of Transportation policy requires keys for vehicles to be left in the office at the end of the day, and not in the vehicles.

Since the Minister has said that the incident, in which a vehicle was stolen and seriously damaged, was a result of a breech of departmental policy, I'd like to ask if the Minister will now recognize his moral responsibility and direct the department to take financial responsibility for the serious mistake of leaving the keys in that vehicle and pay for the damage that happened as a result of that vehicle being stolen?