Supplementary, Mr. Ningark.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I am not at liberty to answer a question now. Will the Minister table that information? Thank you.

Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With pleasure.

Item 5, oral questions. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Renewable Resources. Mr. Speaker, in Monday's Yellowknifer there was an advertisement looking for antlers. I know it is illegal to sell meat that you go out and harvest, but I know as native people, we always share

and do not think of selling meat. It is usually the custom to give it away. Because the policy applies to the sale of meat being illegal, is there a policy that applies to other areas of the animal such as antlers being shipped out of the Northwest Territories to the south, or to other countries? Is there a policy which addresses that issue? Thank you.

Mr. Allooloo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect to caribou parts, I believe under the act a person wanting to ship antlers needs a permit from our department. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Is there a policy that allows for such parts to be shipped out of the Northwest Territories? Is it just a matter of anyone going and getting an export permit and then shipping these parts to other countries? Thank you.

Mr. Allooloo.

I will have to take the question as notice to give a proper answer. Thank you.

The question has been taken as notice. Item 5, oral questions. Mr. Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week I asked the Government Leader about fishing. She indicated that the expert on the Great Slave Lake fishery was Mr. Pollard. So, I would like to ask the Minister a question. Last week we had several fishermen who came to Yellowknife and sat down with Members, it is my recollection that people have been coming to Yellowknife for about 12 years now with problems relating to the fishery. We are told that the fishery is having problems because of the existence of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. I would like to ask the Minister, what is the problem in the fishery with regard to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation as far as his department has been able to analyze?

Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you can call it a problem. I think there is definitely some unrest amongst fishermen with FFMC. It is a sense of frustration more than anything, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the FFMC was formed to protect fishermen. There were a number of companies in the Northwest Territories in Hay River. They were purchasing fish from the fishermen and the same thing was occurring that Mr. Ningark raised today with arts and crafts. That was that the fishermen were not getting very much money for the fish and the fish were being sold in the United States and there was some considerable dollars being made. The fishermen were very unhappy. So, the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation was formed and it has worked relatively well. As costs have increased, as gasoline has gone up, parts for bombardier have gone up, nets are much more expensive, you have to pay people more to go out on the lake to fish, to get a boat these days costs considerably more money than it used to, so the fishermen, rightly so, believe that the price of their fish has not gone up accordingly. So there has been some frustration with fishermen saying that FFMC is not aggressive enough, is top-heavy, is not efficient enough, they process all the fish in Winnipeg or sell the fish into the United States and when they do process in Winnipeg, jobs are lost to people in the Northwest Territories.

There was enough discontent to convince the federal Minister, Mr. Crosbie, to commission a study of FFMC to look at the concerns of fishermen in all of the areas FFMC serves. That report has been delivered to the federal Minister. I anticipate that I will get a copy of that report and be able to determine from that what the problem is. I think the report is going to reveal, Mr. Speaker, that one of the problems is that whitefish is not as popular as it used to be. There has been a change, orange roughy has moved in, we have seen groundfish species move into areas and whitefish has been losing its market share. I believe this is one of the problems we are experiencing at the present time. Those are some of the problems which people see. My position remains the same, Mr. Speaker, that the federal Minister of Fisheries has said that if we were able to present to him a better plan for marketing fish for the Northwest Territories then he would be willing to look at it. There are two pieces of legislation, ours and one which is federal, so it is not an agreement we can opt out of. The other position which I adopt is that before we go and look for substantial new markets for fish from the Great Slave Lake there would have to be, at least, a 51 per cent consensus or vote in favour of looking for other markets, and that would have to come from the fishermen who are making their living on the lake. To date, the fishermen have never delivered that letter to me, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very much interested in this as a renewable resource. From what the Minister says it is a industry in trouble. I would like to ask the Minister, since there was an agreement between several provinces and the federal government to break that agreement, would that require agreement of all the signatories to that agreement in 1969 before it can be broken, or can the federal government simply do it on its own.

Mr. Pollard.

I believe that the federal Minister of Fisheries, if we were to approach him with an alternate

marketing plan, if it was long-term, if it indicated that fishermen were going to do better under a new plan than they are doing with FFMC, would give it serious consideration. It would be his decision whether we stayed in FFMC or not, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Item 5, oral questions. Mr. Pudlat.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism. Last summer a park was opened around Lake Harbour. I would like to know when the official opening of the new park will be.

Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Speaker, I will take the question as notice. Thank you.