Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Next I have Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know I asked the Minister a number of questions yesterday during question period and used my Member's statement yesterday to talk about the Bathurst Caribou Management Plan. I just had a couple of other things I wanted to ask the Minister in this forum. I know it falls under the ENR mandate, wildlife management. I'm just wondering if the Minister has heard from any community, and that's any community in the Northwest Territories, that is currently having any difficulty harvesting caribou. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this point, Mr. Chairman, I don't believe we're aware of any community specifically having difficulty this season in harvesting caribou compared to, say, last season, if that's the Member's question, I don't believe.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess if we were to call any community and community representatives in any community in the Northwest Territories today, I believe they wouldn't tell you that there was a caribou crisis or a lack of any caribou available for harvest. That gets back to the management plan. The numbers that are in the management plan are causing some concern amongst outfitters, amongst local hunters and even harvesters. I don't know why it was done in the way it was without a plan to monitor, to track the other herds that are in the area. It's almost impossible when you have one herd in the middle of four other herds to know which caribou is which. I asked the Minister yesterday if he'd take a look at putting this plan, I called it shelved yesterday, but just putting it aside until the department comes up with a plan to manage the entire caribou population on the mainland here. Today the department doesn't have a plan to manage the entire caribou population. It's so hard to manage one without knowing what's going on with the other ones. The calving grounds change from year to year and I know the Minister's own biologist will tell him that. The calving grounds change, the herds are changing and are interspersed. So again, where are we going with this management of one of our greatest resources? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously we do have these eight herds that occupy a very large geographic area. There is some intermingling. We do our best to count and assess the strength of the herd and do our counts at the calving grounds, as the Member has acknowledged. While those grounds may shift, they are generally in the same area. The Bathurst herd I believe is named because they calve in the area of Bathurst Inlet. So we're doing our best to understand herd dynamics. We have some of what I believe are the foremost experts in this field in the world working for RWED. We do collaring, we rely on traditional knowledge. The names of the herds and the differentiation has changed over time, as we've identified genetic differences, we believe.

But having said that, I don't think the management plan needs to be shelved. I don't think it is suggesting that the herd is in a state of crisis. I think what it is suggesting is that there's a fluctuation in the herd numbers that we need to better understand. If it was 300,000 in the past, we believe, and it's 186,000 or some odd caribou now, I think

we need to know if that's a normal or routine fluctuation in the herd strength over time or if this is the result of something else; potentially development or over hunting. All these things at this point we have not established and we would not purport to establish or impose restrictions on hunting without sitting down and talking to all of the users of the resources. I think that's the comfort I can give the Member that includes outfitters.

So step one, if we establish that because of the calving ground counts the herd is in serious decline or very low and we have to implement a management regime. Step two is to sit down with the users of the resource and the stakeholders. If we were proposing some sort of limitation on outfitters in a certain area, I'm sure they would question us about how we could prove or in fact suggest that it would make a difference, those restrictions, and would ask about our ability to differentiate between the various herds. At that point we'd have a discussion around these issues. I think much of this is in theory, at this point.

The management plan is out there. There are some suggestions potentially if we can determine that the herd is low or in decline. These are the kinds of things we need to talk about. So we're moving forward with this plan. It is a plan that was presented to government; it's not government's plan. I'd like the Members to keep that in mind. But there was involvement from a broad range of stakeholders who have responsibility for herd management, but not all the users of the resources; that would be the next step. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the concerns that's out there is if you look at the numbers of the Bathurst herd specifically, from 1986 there were 470,000 animals and in 2003 there were 186,000. You'd better stand up and pay attention; somehow 300,000 caribou disappeared. But I don't think that's the entire story because we don't have management plans for all the caribou that are there. I think what the management plan does is cause some unnecessary concern out there that the Bathurst caribou herd is in danger, when I don't believe it is. Until you count all the caribou and you have a management plan in place for all the caribou that have the habitat of the central mainland, you have no idea what...How are you ever going to dream up restrictions or bring in restrictions or even think about having restrictions until you count every single caribou from the Hudson Bay to the Mackenzie River? It's impossible. That's what I'm trying to get at and I don't know if the Minister agrees with me on this or not, but it's important to the livelihood of a number of people who live in the Northwest Territories and it's an important issue and one that I think the department has to pay close attention to.

The sooner we have a management plan for all the caribou, the better off we'll be and the more at ease people will be. Because I do believe that if you count up all the caribou, there are more caribou today, from the folks I've talked to, than there were 30 or 40 years ago. That's got to be substantiated somehow. Instead we have a management plan that looks like we've lost 300,000 caribou. Like I mentioned yesterday, any caribou taken from Yellowknife north to the Arctic Coast are deemed to be a Bathurst caribou, when in fact it might be one of three or four different herds. It's just not 100 percent accurate until you know all the figures. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is indicating that we have a plan. I think we should be very clear that the Bathurst Caribou Management Planning Committee has a plan with some recommendations. The membership again, besides government, Dogrib Treaty 11, Yellowknives Dene, North Slave Metis, Lutselk'e Dene, Kitikmeot Inuit, Kitikmeot HTA, Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, and NTI. These are the groups that combine their general knowledge, keeping in mind their mandate for management of the herd, to make these recommendations. I don't want to dismiss what they've done and shelve it or throw it away because anecdotally other people are saying that there are more caribou than we ever know what to do with and are further suggesting that if we can't count every caribou in the North then we'd better not even be talking about a management regime. I think that doesn't make any sense.

We do have management plans for other herds. We were through this yesterday, but I can go through it again. The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Plan was prepared by those two caribou management boards. There's a management plan developed for Cape Bathurst, Bluenose West and Bluenose East herds. In 1998 that plan was accepted as general direction by the YMAC, by the Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board, the Sahtu Renewable Resource Board, Nunavut Wildlife Management Board. There are plans underway to determine the current status of those herds and update these plans in summer of 2005. I will acknowledge that there hasn't been a management plan yet drafted for the Ahiak herd, but this is a difficult task.

If the Member is insisting that we have counted every single animal in the Northwest Territories before we start to acknowledge that potentially there may be a problem, I don't think that makes sense. The 400,000 to 180,000 herd strength numbers, as the Member has indicated, would raise alarm bells unless that's a fluctuation that's been going on over time for centuries. We don't know that at this point. We're trying to work with people who live and have lived in this area for a long time, to assess that traditional knowledge and better understand the strength of the herd. So before we're able to do that, I don't think we can jump to any conclusions that would be well founded. So we're undertaking that activity.

I guess what I'm saying, Mr. Chairman, is there's a lot of work that needs to be done here. We think it's important work. We think it's worth funding and that's why we're proposing to come forward and are asking the Members to approve $275,000 for additional Bathurst caribou monitoring. We wouldn't be doing that if we thought we had all the answers and we're just going to impose some restrictions on a certain range of hunters and start restricting tags. We have no plans to do that at this point. I'm not really sure where the alarm bells are ringing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. General comments. Next I have Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Just a couple of quick questions with respect to the Environment and Natural Resource department and the new formation of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Just in reference to some of the hunters and trappers assistance programs that will probably go through the ITI department and other trappers programs are going to be managed out of the ENR department. Without the Wildlife Act coming into legislation prior to the split of the department, what reviews or consultations with respect to the trapping industry did the department incorporate into the new model and with these reviews and consultations? Is the split of this department going to make things easier for the hunters and trappers in the NWT? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Bell.

I guess, Mr. Chairman, I mostly have to talk about what is not in the ENR department. If you will allow me to do that and to go back into some of the programs available in ITI, we can do that.

The support for the traditional economy is in ITI and we have chosen, when splitting the department, to make that distinction, because we thought it was very important to focus on this activity as a legitimate activity, in terms of economic development.

We believe that it can be a sustainable economic development and can help to provide for many people who want to continue to live a traditional lifestyle. We were afraid that if it was housed with other wildlife issues it would simply be characterized or treated as a subsidy that is nice to have. We believe that it is not that. We are trying to promote the proliferation of the traditional economy and ensure that people are more able to sustain themselves through these programs.

We do have support for trappers in ITI. I think the Member is aware of our grubstake program (sic) to get people started at the beginning of the year. I think the Member is also aware of our prime fur bonus, which is paid on good quality furs coming forward. We also help trappers get their furs to market and provide them advances on that fur. We undertake a lot of education initiatives in the regions. Our renewable resource officers accept and collect the furs. These activities are housed now in ITI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With the Wildlife Act that is probably going to be coming around pretty soon, what is the Minister's opinion on...You know, this is ongoing for 10 plus years, the development of the Wildlife Act and the amendments and the revisions and all this kind of stuff. How is this going to affect the progress toward the Wildlife Act coming into legislation? Is it going to slow it down because there is going to have to be some amendments that are going to have to be incorporated into the new Wildlife Act to accommodate the ENR and ITI initiatives? How is that going to affect the whole development process of the Wildlife Act?

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The programs aren't tied to the act. We don't believe it has any effect on the timing of the drafting of this legislation. What has had an effect is our need to adequately consult with Land Claimant organizations. The Chairman, earlier had questions about YMAC and IGC involvement. It is important for us to take into consideration the suggestions coming forward from these organizations and other land claimant organizations and work very closely with them, to make sure that the act that we are proposing doesn't run afoul of land claim provisions and to have a joint management approach. That really is what has taken the time. We don't believe the split of the department will affect the drafting of the legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for that reassurance, because it has been a long time in the works to just develop that legislation.

With the formation of the new Environment and Natural Resources department, that will be an amendment that would have to be required in the Wildlife Act to accommodate the environment and the natural resources section of this split, not so much the ITI portion of it. Have those been considered?

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Can I ask Members to listen to what is going on here? Thank you, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the good chairmanship.

The issue that the Member is referring to would be simply limited to where in past it might have referred to RWED in the legislation, it would now refer to ENR. Not a significant change and we have not finalized the drafting of this. I don't really think that it will cause any sort of delay. We still have the Environmental Protection Act, the Forrest Management Act, the Forest Protection Act, they just now, are the mandate of ENR as opposed to RWED. It really hasn't had any effect on those pieces of legislation; I don't think it will have any effect on the Wildlife Act. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.