Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we do as an executive try to hear every request that every Member of the Legislature make and we are not able to respond to all of them in the manner they like, we try to respond to everything. If we could do everything overnight it would be great. As Members now and Ministers and the executive would be the happiest to be able to do something like that. All I can say is we hear the Member and we will try to get the information to him. It is not for me to decide that, I think we made that clear. The Minister of Finance is sitting here listening very attentively. I do not know if the Member is aware of it but we have all heard his request so we will see what we can do to share the information. If there is a reason why we cannot then we will probably be told about it. I am sure we will share that the staff are all glued to the TV sets watching us conducting business down here. They monitor everything and they will tell us probably within the next half hour or very simply first thing in the morning the reasons why there may be or why they cannot. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Further questions? Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. I do not hear a question Mr. Erasmus. Do you have a question?

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Erasmus I believe you are referring to the unedited Hansard which many of us do not have access to. I will allow the Minister to answer the question but I just cannot follow it because I do not have the Hansard in front of me. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Financial Management Board has directed that an operational audit be done. The operational audit is being done by the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development. I should not have said allowed. I should not have, and I will stand corrected. It is in the heat of debate, question period.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Further questions? Mr. Erasmus, your time has expired. Further questions? We are on page 11-19, Resource Management and Economic Development, operations and maintenance, $32.537 million. Agreed?

Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the federal government, I believe, has responsibility and jurisdiction over Great Slave Lake, over inland waters and fisheries. It does not appear to rest anymore with the First Nations governments in this area, so things are unlikely to change unless there is agreement to move on devolution or if there is some way to ensure there is a resolution to the outstanding claims of First Nations in this area for them to get some substantive control back over resources like this, that I believe the Member feels has been seriously mismanaged over the years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Further questions? We are on page 11-19, Resource Management and Economic Development, operations and maintenance, $32.537 million. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a government, we have no jurisdiction over inland waters or fisheries and management of that regulation, the legislation of that rests with the federal government. The federal government sets up advisory boards and groups to allow users and the public to have input advising the government on how best to manage resources like this. As a government, we agree that the resource is renewable, that it is something that we all depend on. It is a source of food and potential income for many people, but it has not been managed very well. We are always working on the side of fishermen and aboriginal people trying to find ways in which we can advocate better use, better ways of using resources here in the North that are now currently under the responsibility of the federal government. If there are suggestions that the Member has about what we can do in the next few months, for instance, to propose to the federal government, I would be very happy to work with them on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Further questions? Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for clarification, I guess, yes, no answers are ones that my colleagues like me to give. I think Members of Caucus as well, Ordinary Members. It is also true that some days I like to give long-winded answers because there is always something useful in the ensuing discussion that often erupts into.

Back to the business here on the Great Slave Lake fishery, we know that there have been a great number of studies done over the years trying to arrive at a strategy that everybody could support and understand and support, for instance, for a commercial fishing industry on Great Slave Lake. I believe the staff, and I will be preparing an in-house paper that will begin to try to examine the different issues regarding fishing and fisheries on Great Slave Lake and draft a number of recommendations for myself to look at. We are going to look at people who use the lake, outfitters and lodge operators to commercial fishermen to subsistence users, aboriginal people, sports and recreation. A paper like this, if we can work it into a form that is acceptable for release, will be released for public consultation sometime this spring. We will work on the revised strategy based on the consultation we hope to have during the course of the summer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Erasmus.