Minister of Economic Development and Tourism, Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Discussions about the idea of a small tannery have been under way for some time now with the people of Coral Harbour, and it is the intention of the department to provide assistance to the community to develop a small tannery, primarily to deal with the significant skins that will be available over the next three or four years with the commercial caribou hunt. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mrs. Thompson.

My supplementary question to the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism, Mr. Speaker, is how much assistance is going to be given for the people of Coral Harbour to start the tannery?

Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is our intention to have the tannery somewhat similar to the model we've cleared in Whale Cove. It will be a smaller community type of tannery to avoid some of the difficult and costly expenditures that have come about because of the environmental considerations related to larger tanneries.

I don't know exactly what the available dollars are, but I believe there was somewhere in the region of $30,000 to $50,000 spent in Whale Cove. I think, coupled with the capital investment, we would also send in, perhaps, some people with expertise garnered in the Whale Cove experience. It will be a combination of some training dollars and some capital dollars to put a plant in place. I'm fairly optimistic that we can get that under way in the coming months, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.