Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the things which the department does for hunters and trappers is a designated amount of money is allocated the Workers' Compensation Board. I do not see it in any of the details. Could you tell me whether or not we still have such a program in place.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The program is in place. For this year, because the Workers' Compensation Board is defining who is the hunter and what income they should be eligible for, it is not in our budget. However, once the Workers' Compensation Board defines the hunter and the income, we will put it in our budget before the end of the fiscal year. Thank you.

While the Workers' Compensation Board is looking at the definition of "principally engaged," do we not have a program?

Yes, we do. We have a program. The existing policies still apply. Let me correct myself, when the Workers' Compensation Board knows how much they have spent on the hunters, at the end of each fiscal year, they bill the department. Thank you.

The Minister wrote to me several months ago with regard to the tagging of animals. When Mr. Patterson introduced a motion with regard to the anti-fur movement, I mentioned the issue of tagging animals as unnecessary cruelty. We are still doing this. In your response to me, Mr. Minister, you also indicated that you will continue to do so. I do not know if there is justification having these bulky tags on the animals. I understand that moose are another animal you are going to be collaring. Is there a different way of doing that? There must be a microchip or something else that you could

use, other than those big thick collars and bulky sensors that they carry around. Can you respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The information we get from radio collars on animals is very valuable. We are finding out about the movement of caribou on Baffin Island that scientists did not know before. There movement is so vast on Baffin Island. We are finding out more about lynx that is very beneficial to the trappers and to the world. We are gathering information about the polar bear that we could never have received if we did not put a radio collar on them.

I will ask the department to bring radio collars here so we can show them. Maybe I will have them tomorrow at the caucus meeting to show the Members how big radio collars are, et cetera. Technology is changing and the collars are getting smaller. At the present time, unfortunately, we are not able to use computer chips that would give us the same information. We are using the latest technology and it is the best the market is able to give us. Thank you.

Perhaps I could see a reason for these transmitters in the western Arctic, but you mentioned the caribou on the Baffin Island. It is so open and there are no trees, observation should be fairly easy. The caribou are not super-caribou, when they migrate, they do it slowly. Someone should be able to follow them and study them that way, too. Why not?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Even on Baffin Island where there are no trees or obstacles that would prevent people from seeing them, they are difficult to see. Especially at this time of year, the animals have adapted to the environment for a long period of time and they are difficult to see on the snow. They are a different colour than the caribou we see around here. If you attempt to follow them, they travel very far. In Cape Dorset there was one collared and it is now right across from Pond Inlet, which is 1,000 miles of travel in one year. It is providing us with very valuable information. We are looking at vegetation also. Where this particular caribou was one year ago, the vegetation was used up by caribou so they moved to a different area. It is very interesting to us.

The traditional knowledge of the people is confirmed to a large degree by these collars. I think it is very healthy. The international community can only go by the scientific data.

In 1982, there was a biologist looking at bison. At that time, there were about 2,000 in the Fort Providence area. This is ten years later and I would like to know the population of the bison?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We think there are about 2,500 to 3,000 animals.

At what point in the population growth are you going to allow a community, Fort Providence for example, to harvest commercially?

Mr. Chairman, we are experimenting with one commercial licence this year in Fort Providence. If that proves to be successful, I think we would allow more commercial hunts, depending on the population and the community, particularly if they want to do it. Thank you.