Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister make adequate resources available to deal with this problem? I don't think $40,000 is adequate; $40,000 is probably what it costs you to fly your consultants in from Edmonton to give you a report that says it will happen again next year and you can fly us back in again. It costs more than $40,000 to review this problem. Will the Minister make adequate resources available to resolve this problem which is more than $40,000?

I think I would like to ask the Minister when will he be able to find adequate resources to deal with this problem if you do not have the money now. Clearly, in this report it says there are cancer-causing components in the water system. You are telling me you don't have the resources, but we have a report here which says there are cancer-causing components. When will we be able to find the resources to deal with it?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the month of November, I met with Monte Hummel of the World Wildlife Fund, at which time I offered to work cooperatively with his organization to identify areas of mutual concern with regard to areas that should be protected. We agreed that first we have to identify those areas together and then develop a strategy on how to gain some form of protection for these areas, whether it is done through federal parks or territorial parks. We agreed that for the most part, it would largely be the prerogative of the federal government to identify such areas. We suggested that territorial parks are much smaller in scale than national parks. They are intended to be user-friendly for tourists and local people to use. The World Wildlife Fund was more interested in identifying areas that were ecologically sensitive and that were inhabited by a certain wildlife species that needed protection. Aside from that, we have nothing to suggest except that, for the second year in a row, we have received a failing mark from this prestigious international organization. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, we have had a tremendous amount of work to do since we were all elected. I believe that in the month of June, things might slow down a little, enough to allow some

of us to begin some work on some new initiatives that need our attention. We can engage in an activity to identify areas with groups like the World Wildlife Fund, but at the end of the day, we also need to know who is going to pay and where the money is going to come from. I am interested in going through the exercises, as I am sure the World Wildlife Fund is, in identifying areas where we should show some concern for the ecology and the wildlife within those areas to be identified.

We also have to keep in mind that we aren't designing something that is way beyond our reach financially and that we can only wish we could do all the things that we set out to do. As long as the World Wildlife Fund is aware of that, we will have a very good working relationship. I know there is an organization that has access to a great deal of money internationally and I would be interested to see how much money they would put into ventures like that themselves. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there are almost no protected areas in the continent of Europe because it is almost all polluted, irrigated, farmed or has been completely decimated from many species of wildlife. Here in North America, we do suffer from the unusual high expectations of organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund. We are still a remote, sparsely-populated, relatively clean, pristine environment and, with diligence, we can continue to keep the environment in that relative state with good management. However, in order to give good report cards themselves, organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund have to continue passing report cards on people like ourselves. I don't think it is deserved or necessarily productive, but it does keep their sponsors coughing up the pay cheques and the money to keep organizations like that alive. I say that to put things in proper context.

The Government of the Northwest Territories knows there are fewer than 60,000 people here in the Northwest Territories. We are one-third the land mass in Canada, with 1.5 million square miles of area. The whole place, as far as I'm concerned, is still a protected area. However, we are interested in engaging, as I've indicated to Mr. Monte Hummel, in any exercise that would ease the fears of people down south, that our wildlife and ecology is not going to be run over by industry overnight and, perhaps, we could demonstrate some ways that we are concerned about the wildlife.

As has been indicated by the Finance Minister, 75 per cent of our money is an outright grant from the Government of Canada. We are short by 3,000 houses in the Northwest Territories, we have severe social and economic problems right now that deserve the bulk of our financial resources. Any suggestion that we would be willing to spend millions of dollars designating certain areas and then protecting them simply to get a possible improvement in our report card from the World Wildlife Fund would be unrealistic, I believe. Thank you.