Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the role of the NWT Development Corporation is just that, a development corporation. There are people in the small communities who want to make a dollar or two, and they do that through making baskets, let's say in Fort Laird, out of birch bark or making moccasins, or different arts and crafts in their communities.

Here in this Legislative Assembly, MLAs in the past have asked what are you doing to develop this. We have created an NWT arts and crafts strategy that addresses this sort of issue. This strategy is coming out very shortly, we just haven't done released it yet. That sort of thing will be addressed at that level. What I have done is sent a directive to the Arctic Canada Trading Company Limited. The company wanted a board of directors comprised of individual businesspeople throughout the North, including people from Yellowknife. They said that this is the direction that they would like to go and they asked for this sort of authority and I gave it. They wanted to do a test to see if a wholesale approach would work, but that hasn't been picked up on. If the member is asking me to rescind this corporate directive, then I should hear that.

On the other hand, you've got to realize that the Development Corporation is to help the businesses in the Northwest Territories, including the smaller communities where people are making these products. They are making a lot of it and we're the only one that sells it. The retailers, not only from Yellowknife but from other communities, have an opportunity to buy these things on a wholesale basis from a development corporation so they could resell it at retail prices. So what we are trying to do is look at the bigger picture in the Northwest Territories and buy products made in the communities, and make them available for retailers to sell on the market.

If there is a problem with the corporate sales policy, then I should hear it. We are trying to do a couple of things that seem kind of "retail". They're business people, they want to make a dollar, and we have no problem with that but, at the same time, as a corporation, we have all these products on hand and we are trying to find ways of selling them so there's a cash flow so with what we sell we can buy more in the smaller communities. So you have to look at that side as well. Thank you.