Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of my favourite subjects is the utilization of renewable resources. I have raised questions and made statements over the year about the ability of this department to work and coordinate projects with other government departments in trying to establish projects or programs where we can use our natural resources and our people resources. I have mentioned before that in the area of renewable resources, fishing, the use of furs, the meat products that our people use and the bird population that we utilize, there is a tremendous resource out there that we are slowly starting to develop. In these areas, many of our people do not need much education. They need some specialized skills, but generally they know how to go on the land, they know how to work out of canoes and they know how to survive. In terms of technology required to prepare, address and preserve the wildlife for sale, not only to outside people but to our own restaurants and other northern residents, we do not seem to be making much headway. We have small projects here and there. Some are successful and go for a short time and then they close down and we do not follow-up on why or what happened. Many times we say it is marketing problems and that is it. There has been a tremendous amount of work done in this area and I feel that all the departments, Economic Development, your department and the Department of Health in terms of the inspection required for many of these products, including the department of Education and Employment Programs, can develop new programs and projects to make use of these resources. Over the years, through EDA and other programs, there have been many studies done and it leads me to wonder where all these studies are which were completed on the use of goose and duck feathers, the use of caribou hides, the use of just about every product, fish oil, seal oils and seal meats. There have been hundreds of studies done that must be stacked somewhere and we should start digging them out and spreading the knowledge around to give people something to do.
The other area I would like to talk about is the livelihood of trapping. There has been some very good statements made over the past week by my colleague, Jim Antoine, about the way of life that a trapper leads. That way of life seems to be slowly dying because it seems that the policies being developed by this government -- I know it is not only this government, it is international -- but we are implementing policies and program changes and the main one is the use of the quick kill trap. From the trappers I have talked to, the quick kill traps being used do not work. We have had professional trappers who have been in the bush all their lives coming back and giving up trapping in December, when it is prime trapping time, saying these traps are not working. Here we are, a government, and in November we ran out of these traps. When people were going out on the trap line, they could not get enough of these traps because there were not enough available. In that case, many trappers did not even bother to go out on their trap line. Yet, we have no way of compensating, no way of looking after these people other than sending them to the Social Services office and tell them to go on social assistance. I know many, what we call professional trappers, usually never go on social assistance in their lives as they are very independent, strong-willed individuals. It is a shame because of the policies or programs that we are putting in place, that these people are suffering and subsequently their families are suffering. It is negatively affecting the way of life of many of these people. I feel we should do something and do it quickly to try to instill some confidence in the trapping industry to help these trappers who used to go and live in the bush most of the winter and make a good living at it. From what they and other people have told me, they cannot and are not making a good living. I think it is up to us and the department to come up with some new initiative or something to assist them. I will leave it at that, Mr. Chairman.