Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to make a comment today about the Hanging Ice Bison Ranch and the Department of Renewable Resources. The Department of Renewable Resources gave the community of Fort Smith until December 1st to submit a proposal to possibly salvage the Hanging Ice Bison Ranch. After I was elected, I made this an issue and we tried to come up with a salvage plan, but lo and behold we found out that the government had moved ahead and ignored its own deadline to us and said it's too bad, it's unfortunate, but we've already signed a contract.
That was fine. We weren't that happy but we decided we would make the best of it because some of that was our own fault. We indicated to the government that we would be interested in pulling together a salvage plan with possibly using Elk Island buffalo and possibly going to the people of Fort Providence to see if they would be kind enough to give us some buffalo to restock Hanging Ice Ranch.
The government indicated that they would be very happy to work with us in a positive way that, yes, they would leave the infrastructure that was there to help us possibly pull together a salvage plan. We accepted that in good faith. As things have proceeded, the buffalo are now gone and it turns out that not only are the buffalo gone but they've killed the ranch and now they're in there looting the corpses. They've taken away the infrastructure that they promised they would allow us to keep to work around to see if we could put together a proposal. The deputy minister, who seems to be running the department, has made that commitment. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the people of Fort Smith feel very shabbily treated by the Department of Renewable Resources in this case. We've attempted to be very calm and rational about this to work with the government; and it's extremely disillusioning, I might add, as we talk about open government and working with the people. If it's an indication of how the Department of Renewable Resources intends to do business, then I think we have lots of work to do if they want to have a good working relationship in the community and I think it's very unfortunate. Thank you.