Thank you. For the record, I am not saying that the person is not doing a good job, but there should be some kind of policy in place within the community to make sure everything is operated accordingly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To get the point across to HTAs, I will write a letter to each HTA who has a wildlife guardian to say that it is up to officers to review the positions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask, under local wildlife committees, what is meant by, "which provide similar services?"

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the eastern Arctic, we have hamlet councils and we normally have

a local hunters' and trappers' associations. In the western Arctic, they do not always have local hunters' committee or local hunters' and trappers' association. In that case, we give the bands that responsibility, and they provide similar services as hunters' and trappers' associations. Thank you.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Agreed.

---Agreed

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is the area where I have my concern in regard to the poor fur harvest this year and the trappers' incentive program. Could the Minister explain how this fur harvest incentive works? Does it work on a percentage of how much a trapper makes in a year? With this poor trapping season and the trappers hardly going out this year, and those who did made very little, this incentive is not going to work next fall, if they want to go back. Could the Minister explain to me and everyone else how he is going to deal with the situation next fall? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, this particular one on page 10-22, is a revolving fund. We give advances to the trappers when they are going out. When they come back, after they have sold their furs, that goes back to this fund. I think the Member is questioning the ones which we dealt with on page 10-19. Particularly for this year, the Member has stated this is a very bad trapping season. I have asked my department to see if we can find ways to help these trappers who are suffering hardship. I understand my deputy minister is working with the Department of Social Services to see if they can find ways to help these people. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

All right. I was not in the House when we were dealing with page 10-19, I was talking to a chief from Fort Simpson. We were discussing the trappers' incentive subsidy in the back room when you were dealing with it out here. In the Fort Simpson area, they want to have a meeting with the trappers to see how they can deal with this. Perhaps I could go back to page 10-19 on the trappers' incentive. Next fall, the way the trappers' incentive subsidy works, the department estimates how much a trapper made in a year and it gives them back a percentage for the following year to get them going in the fall. That is eventually recovered through the trapping season. With the trapping season being very poor this year, if trappers want to go back next fall, they are going to have a real problem because many of them did not make the kind of money they made over the last five years. There is discussion going on. They want to discuss this situation. One of the options they are looking at is proposing to the department to look at the last five years, average it out and give them an incentive based on that. This year's trapping was very poor. My cousin normally makes about $1,500 or $2,000 a year, and this year he made approximately $200. If you are going to give him a percentage of that it is going to be nothing, so you are going to have to base it on something. That is the direction of my questioning. Are you going to look at different ways of assisting trappers in the fall because of the trapping season being very poor this current year? If you could give me an answer to see how you are going to deal with it, I would appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we could look at those different options. Since the policy is a Cabinet policy, if there are going to be any changes I would have to go back to Cabinet to change the policy. Yes, we could look at different options. Thank you.

I would like to thank the Minister for that. The trappers in the community of Fort Simpson are planning to meet some time next week. They want to discuss this issue. They are saying they would like to make a proposal on how to deal with the trappers' incentive subsidy because they see it as a problem for next fall. If we propose something now, perhaps something might be in place by next fall's trapping season. Would you accept that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The earlier, the better. It will give us a chance to explore options to change the policy.