Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister responsible for the environment. Recycling is one area of protecting our environment that I and I am sure many other Members of this Legislature addressed during our election campaigns, but it is not something that I have heard discussed too much since then. It has been brought up again by my constituents and I have some questions for the Minister on that today. I think that everyone agrees that northerners need to be more involved in the environment. Recycling is one way that we can do that. We need to find alternatives to costly landfill sites because of the amount of plastic and glass bottles, aluminum beer and pop cans which find their way into our northern communities and never seem to find their way out. Partially because I believe, there is no deposit system in place. There is not a monetary incentive for people to be environmental conscience when it comes to these recyclable materials in the north. I am just wondering when was the last time that this government considered a comprehensive plan or a campaign for recycling. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not aware of the last time a comprehensive review was done to see how the government should address the issue of recycling. Thank you.

Another area of recycling which I am curious about is in respect to the vast amounts of paper that various government departments consume and what happens with that paper when it is no longer needed. Does the GNWT have a government wide policy regarding the recycling of paper that is generated by government offices in the communities where the services for that pickup and recycling are available? Is there a policy governing departments? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am not aware if we do have a policy on recycling, the gathering and collecting of paper. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not think that anyone would argue that we here in the north are somewhat behind the times when it comes to individuals and consumers participating in protecting our environment. So, I would like to get some kind of an indication from the Minister if he sees any obvious deterrents to us as a government initiating something which would encourage that kind of participation.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Resource, Wildlife and Economic Development has had a very tough year in terms of the workload that the department had to deal with. As Members will recall, we started off last year, myself as a Minister for three departments. We also had a mandate to amalgamate the three departments. We were running, so to speak, three old machines while creating and instituting the running of a new one, all at the same time. We went through this deficit reduction exercise as a major player in that. The work that we have had has been very demanding on the part of our department.

We have not really had a great deal of time to initiate new ideas and new areas of work. At least I have tried to refrain from it, just trying to keep the services that we have had operational trying to simplify it, trying to get the department on stream. We have now basically done that and are now prepared to consider suggestions such as the one the Member is just making. Thank you.

Thank you, for that response from the Minister and I do know first hand that it has been a very busy time for the government. I am attempting to go back and revisit commitments that I made personally at the beginning of my ten-year here in the Legislature. I know that I can speak from my community, at least, that there are people there who are very environmentally conscience that would be more than happy to pledge their volunteer time to work with the Minister's department to come up with ideas, if not territorial wide, even community based initiatives. So, I appreciate that and I will report back to those in the community that there is going to be room on the agenda for RWED to look at these initiatives. I do not know what kind of a timeframe the Minister would be looking at. I am not aware of who within his department or what branch within his department would be the appropriate one if these individuals wanted to contact them. Is there a division of RWED that this type of initiative would suitably fit? Thank you.