Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To my understanding, the chairman of the Sustainable Development Committee was contacted. The chief of the Dene Nation was contacted. The leader of the Metis Nation was contacted. The understanding that I have is that the various organizations would not be able to work together, but would be willing to meet with department officials.

I spoke to Dennis Bevington, the mayor in the town of Fort Smith, before he left and he felt there was some urgency to transport the bison. He felt that there is enough of a market in Alberta that we would not be creating what has happened to the Arctic char. There is a market for live bison in southern Canada.

With that understanding, my deputy minister contacted all the leaders in Fort Smith. The leaders who I know he contacted were those I stated earlier. The intention was to hold a meeting early this week in the town of Fort Smith. I believe it could be as early as tomorrow. To date, those are the only ones who will be meeting with the department officials. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Item 6, oral questions. Final supplementary, Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't believe anyone is disputing the fact that there's a market for wood bison. I guess the concern is coming from the native people with regard to renewable resources, whether or not the sale of renewable resources is something the native people of Fort Smith support. With all due respect to the mayor, not being a native person, it's sometimes difficult to be able to speak for native people when it comes to renewable resources issues.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister, will the Minister commit his department to hold a public meeting with regard to the exportation of live wood bison? Thank you.

Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will commit to calling a public meeting in the next little while. I'm not able to confirm a date, but I will ensure that there is a public meeting called in the town of Fort Smith. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Time for question period has lapsed. Item 19, consideration in committee of the whole of bills and other matters. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to tabling of documents, please. Thank you.

The Member for Thebacha is seeking unanimous consent to go back to item 13, tabling of documents. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Mrs. Marie-Jewell, proceed.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I would like to table Tabled Document 48-12(7), a document from the Salt River First Nations. This basically indicates concerns from citizens, I believe the majority of them are band members, with regard to Hanging Ice Buffalo Ranch. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 13, tabling of documents. Item 19, consideration in committee of the whole of bills and other matters: Bill 1, Appropriation Act, No. 2, 1995-96; Committee Report 2-12(7), Report on the Legislative Action Paper on the Office of Ombudsman for the Northwest Territories; Committee Report 3-12(7), Report on the Review of the Legislative Action Paper Proposing New Heritage Legislation for the Northwest Territories; and, Committee Report 4-12(7), Report on the Review of the 1995-96 Main Estimates, with Mr. Whitford in the chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, after discussion with some of the ordinary Members this morning, I would like to recommend that we continue with the Renewable Resources department. If we are able to conclude that, we will go to Safety and Public Services, then to Education, Culture and Employment. Thank you.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Department Of Renewable Resources

With the permission of the committee, I would, yes.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is my deputy minister, Mr. Joe Handley; to my immediate right is Mr. Rick Feil who is the director of finance; and, on my far right is Mr. Marius Tungilik who is special advisor for Nunavut.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few general comments on the Department of Renewable Resources. To start with, this is the department that has been responsible for forest fires every year since it has been transferred. I have a concern, like everyone else in the western part of the north where there are forests, in particular my constituency where we have a lot of marketable forests. The protection of the forest is very important to us because of the potential economic benefits that people in my constituency may gain from it in the future.

Last year was a very dry season and, as a result, there were a lot of fires. Just north of Fort Simpson there were over 500,000 hectares of land burned. That piece of area is bigger than some small countries in Europe; that is the size of the forest that burned to the north of us. I think there were seven fires that joined to make a huge one. As a result, a large area of land burned. And that was just one fire. There were others in that area as well. So we're talking about an enormous piece of country in the west.

As a result of that, this government has spent a huge amount of money, over $20 million. There's a holding figure of $7 million every year that is budgeted for firefighting. That was expended and an additional $20 million was also expended. I heard a figure of an additional $22 million, so I could say a total of approximately $29 million was spent last year in fighting fires. That's an enormous amount of money.

What is really troubling is that this has been cited as one of the reasons this government has brought down a deficit budget this year: the expenditure of such an enormous amount of money to fight fires. Even though that amount of money was spent, a large piece of country also burned. So you have to ask yourself a lot of questions. What caused it? We know the weather conditions have been very hot and very dry, with a lack of rain and a lack of snow in the winter. So the country was very dry when these conditions arose. It was difficult to fight that fire so the country burned, yet we spent $29 million trying to fight the fire.

Some companies made a lot of money; some people made a lot of money with overtime and so forth. I know that this department has been meeting with community leaders and talking to them about if this season is equally as dry and if we have the same conditions that allowed last summer to have such huge fires, how can we fight the fires more effectively? That is a major concern to me. First of all, we have to protect what is left of the forests; especially the marketable timber areas should be protected. Secondly, are we going to be spending another $29 million next summer? Hopefully not.

I would like to know what the department has come up with. I know they've been directed to look at it very closely. A lot of suggestions have been made, such as why couldn't we use more manpower and less mechanical ways of fighting fires. Can people fight fires in the evening when it's cooler, rather than in the heat of the day? These suggestions were made. I think the union is involved in this one because only they're allowed to fight fires during daylight time. Whereas, the most reasonable time is when it's cooler. Where are we in this whole area? Perhaps the Minister could answer that once I've concluded my statement. That is one of the concerns I have.

The other concern is the marketable forest industry in my area. There are a number of people who are cutting firewood to make ends meet and put food on the table for their family. It's a small industry. I have been hearing complaints from the people that the very little income they make is solely from cutting wood, and they have to pay quite an enormous amount on stumpage fees. Now those stumpage fees are going to increase. Part of the reasoning of the department in charging high-priced stumpage fees is because you're paying for the reforestation. Personally, I don't agree with reforestation at all, in terms of how it is done. I agree that there should be reforestation, but not wherever there has been a fire; I do all kinds of hunting and I walk over all kinds of different terrain in the north, and wherever there is a fire the ground naturally reproduces itself. The trees are coming up -- the willows, birch and whatever -- by themselves. You don't have to plant spruce that were farmed in BC to be imported here to get reforestation. I think the ground is very nourishing and it grows back by itself.

The argument that we need reforestation doesn't hold water for me. I think if you leave the land the way it is, it will rejuvenate itself, at a lesser cost. We're looking at ways of cutting costs; that's one place, you could cut costs.

What I'm encouraging people in my area to do is get into a sawmill operation in the Liard valley. I think that's possible now because there are a lot of forests in that area. This would mean that there will be a sustainable economy there if it's handled right, and there will be a sawmill there for many, many years. We're not talking about a huge operation, but a smaller operation where there would be a certain number of hectares a year to log, and then logging in another season, in the summertime, perhaps. In the long run, there could also be secondary industries. People could make furniture or housing materials from the lumber that is produced. So, they are looking at a sustainable economy there. This industry is only a dream right now. It is a fledgling industry and putting the stumpage fees in place is going to hamper its development. I have a concern about that.

The other concern I have is this department does timber cruising in the forest, where they identify trees for cutting. I have to refer back to the Wrigley logging operation where the department has identified trees and the people in the communities are telling me that the trees that were identified by the crew from Renewable Resources were too small. They are going by 10 inches and the people would prefer going by a bigger grade because there are a lot of forests in that area and 10 inches is too small. They have asked if they could go with a larger scale, with larger trees, rather than smaller trees. They would prefer to go that way.

This is what I'm hearing from the communities, from the people who are actually cutting down the trees and stockpiling them and so forth. It is easier to work with bigger trees.

The other concern that I have, Mr. Chairman, is in the area of furs. Members know that I have gone to Europe about three times now to meet with the European Parliament with regard to the fur industry. The Parliament has imposed regulations on their imports of furs and are banning any furs caught with leghold traps totally. Canada has been given a one-year grace period to comply with the regulations. Here, in the Northwest Territories, we have complied with the regulations, above and beyond the standards, I'm told.

In a recent trip to Europe at the end of November, we met with the first and 11th director generals. The first director general deals with international trade and the 11th director general is responsible for the environment and furs. What I'm told is that the territorial government has approved the quick kill trap which was distributed, at a cost of over $1 million, to all the trappers in the Northwest Territories. I'm told that an additional $1 million was spent training the trappers in the north on how to use these traps. So, over $2 million has been used so far to comply with this European regulation.

The problem I have is that this quick kill trap hasn't been approved yet by anybody. We're assuming that the approval will come, but one of the problems with fur regulations is that the ISO, a group of 90 countries, which is supposed to approve this quick kill trap to comply with the European regulation, hasn't approved it yet. We're assuming it will be approved and I'm told by the department that the standards of the quick kill traps go above and beyond the European regulation standards.

But, if the ISO gets together and decides that the quick kill traps -- which this government has spent over $1 million on -- aren't appropriate, then we're in serious trouble. What do we do then? That's my question. I will guarantee that if these quick kill traps that this government has sanctioned, bought, distributed and trained people about are not acceptable to the ISO, then we're in serious trouble. I have a concern about that.

The other area that I want to touch on with regard to furs concerns the new initiatives that this government has undertaken to develop the fur industry. I've always been concerned about this. Trappers trap wild furs in the territories that are of very high quality. They are of excellent quality, as far as I'm concerned. When our trappers sell their furs to fur buyers, to the Northern Store or to Renewable Resources, they are sent down to auction houses in southern Canada. There, different fur buyers bid on them according to their quality and, as a result, they are sold. A lot of the fur buyers are from Europe.

What I'm assuming happens is that the prices that our wild northern furs go for are not premium, because I believe they are mixed in with southern furs and may drop in price because of that. If we market our furs up here and market them exclusively as northern or Arctic furs, I think we could get higher prices than if we send them to auction houses down south. That's what I'm assuming. I was hoping that this government would begin work to help develop a fur industry for the territories.

Carrying on with fur, I see that there's an objective to helping some communities get into the fur garment industry and that's a good thing. I was hoping that if anything like that happened, there would be something in my area as well. Unfortunately, it hasn't. I think there are some pretty good furs that come out of my area, and people in my area would like to see that type of industry develop in my constituency area and the Deh Cho area as well because of the quality of furs that have been coming out of there for many years.

This is my final question. A number of years ago, there was a project where live lynx were caught in my constituency area -- I know the people who worked with renewable resources to catch these live lynx -- and shipped to Vegreville, Alberta, I believe. I wasn't too clear on why these lynx were caught; I know they were sold to Alberta. I would like to know why they catch the lynx from the north. Are they planning to start farming these animals to get the furs? Here we're helping create another industry in another part of the country which will probably eventually be competing against us for furs. I would like to know why this was done and what is the status of that particular project? These are the concerns that I have right now, Mr. Chairman. Mahsi.