Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Handley is right, it is a beautiful area. A lot of people call it God's country. I look forward to working with him in developing that area for tourism.

The other question that I have is about caribou. There is a lot of caribou in the Northwest Territories. We have seen statistics through our review of the hotel tax that big game hunting is on the rise. The traditional kind of hunting is always there and is always consistent. There are a lot of caribou hides out there that do not get utilized. Has the department ever sent out caribou hides, whether with the fur attached or detached, both the fur and the hide itself, for product development? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Minister has indicated, we have tried a number of initiatives over the years in various regions. The reason we prefer to do it here in the North is transportation costs to ship raw hides out for tanning is very prohibitive. You have to pay transportation in and out both ways. Most people find it is easier to just order from catalogues where you only pay one way. What we are trying to do is to show people how to tan here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Tanning is a good idea, but I am not just talking about tanning. I am talking about maybe making pillows out of the fur and different products, whether tanned or not tanned, out of caribou hides, like leather briefcases, et cetera. The product development research development I am talking about is not the shipping of the fur, the hide, or the raw materials south and getting them shipped back. I am talking about just researching different ways that it could be done that could be incorporated in the Northwest Territories, as Mr. McLeod indicated. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Koe is going to be a busy man. The other area of interest, specifically for tourism and possibly big game hunting, is on the south side of the lake. Our buffalo population is healthy. The buffalo themselves may not be healthy. A lot of them are infected with tuberculosis and so on. Those are going to be managed.

The biggest market for big game hunting in the world seems to be the United States. For some odd reason that I am not sure of, they do not allow buffalo products into the United States. Has the department ever tried to look into the possibility of lobbying or finding loopholes within the United States immigration or customs to allow hunters to come up here and take some of the products that they may be getting in the Northwest Territories from buffalo?

Fort Resolution has a very depressed economy. I am sure they could really use a boost in tourism. Buffalo is something that is unique in this day and age. I think they would be appreciative if they could open that area of tourism. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is certainly an area that we have looked at. It is one of the objectives we want to achieve in regard to buffalo. As the Member knows, buffalo was classified as an endangered species. It has now been downlisted to threatened. We do have experience in getting entry into the United States market with regard to sports hunting. We were able to successfully do so with polar bears. The same approach would have to be taken with buffalo in order to be able to get American hunters to get back a buffalo trophy, the head. The most important consideration is to have healthy buffalo herds. What is generally recognized is that they are free-roaming buffalo herds.

What we have done in the past with polar bears is we would utilize somebody strategic in the United States as our point man to help us get the legislation through on the United States side. That was the approach that we used with polar bears and it would generally be the same for buffalo. Thank you.

-- Technical Difficulties

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday when I was questioning the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, we had some technical difficulties as well. I am just wondering if I am asking some difficult questions or if the people who are operating the sound and camera equipment do not like the answers that I am getting.

Anyway, I am encouraged by the answer Mr. Bob McLeod has given me on the area of buffalo and trying to get buffalo products into the United States. It is one of those unique animals in the Northwest Territories, in the world, and I think they would attack tourism in a controlled, managed environment. I look forward to working with the Minister and his deputy in the community of Fort Resolution and any other community that may want to be involved in this kind of business in the future.

I want to get back to the anglers that go to the East Arm from Yellowknife and other parts of the North in Canada that do not particularly have any rules to follow out there. They could go anywhere, anytime. They disturb the hunting areas of the community people of Lutselk'e. They could be taking any number of fish. There is no safeguard and, as I stated earlier, the people of Lutselk'e are worried about their fish count of the kind of fish that are there. Recognizing that Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development has significantly cut the budget for forest fires, there needs to be more management in that area. People are making fires anywhere and disturbing all kinds of areas.

There are all kinds of historical sites around Great Slave Lake, lots of burial grounds and I think there is an opportunity -- I am not stepping on any other government's responsibility here -- to make sure that the pristine environment is protected, possibly creating employment in the community by having people from the community work with the Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development to establish park-like areas that people could use to camp. I strongly encourage the department to work with the Lutselk'e Dene Band to come up with an agreement to do so.

Again, I would like to hear the Minister's thoughts on that. It is not stepping on the federal government's responsibilities and I am sure the band would look forward to starting discussions in this area. It is a concern and I think there is an opportunity rising from that concern. I think the department could recognize that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.