Mr. Chairman, if the Minister could forget I ever suggested it, if he has not thought of it yet. Mr. Chairman, I am very concerned about the reduction similar to the other Members to the Hunters and Trappers Administration Fund. That is really what it is. It is not really used for any other purpose except to pay a part-time secretary to do the paper work, to do the filing, to arrange the minutes of the committees and to keep track of the committee minutes. It is a very small fund if you divide it by the amount of committees that have access to that fund. It is going to hit the hunters and trappers where they really need that support. I noticed in the opening statement by the Minister that he suggested that all of his cuts in his department have been mostly away from the harvesting support programs. I appreciate that. I think the hunters and trappers appreciate that. I am really concerned about the hunters still having the ability to keep track of their paperwork.
It must be realized that these hunters and trappers do not respond to their own members' concerns. There are all kinds of paperwork that comes through that office, including scientific application permits from this government, requests from this government for information on land use applications, as well as from the federal government. There are all kinds of applications that come through the hunters and trappers. They need this administration funding. I believe it would seriously affect the ability of the hunters and trappers committees to operate. It could be argued that some of the money that is being directed towards Western Harvester Support Program, in particular my region, hunters and trappers would have access to that funding for administration purposes. It takes away from the purpose of why the money was there in the first place, which was to help harvesters, not do the paperwork. In that sense, the money that is available to the group and let us not forget, it is only the interest that is available to them, it is not the principal. If you divide those interests up into the communities, it does not amount to much when you divide it by the population. It is very small. All that is available is the interest. The principal is not available. Do not forget, those people are using their own land claims money in order to set the program up so they can use their own money to harvest. Obviously that cuts down on their requirement to the government to harvest. It does not cut down on the requirement of paperwork that comes through those offices. My point, Mr. Chairman, is reduction to that particular program is a reduction to the ability to the hunters and trappers to respond to government. I am prepared at this time, Mr. Chairman, to put forward a motion, if I may?