Okay.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a briefing was offered to GED. We also gave the package out as soon as we came out of Cabinet, so the Members had it, in fact, three days or so before it was made public. We are going to continue to work with the co-management boards, as well as other stakeholders. I would just suggest that if you looked at this nine pages of the interim plan, there's extensive detail that lists the chronology and all the work that's been done, and I think it does constitute good, and fair, and full consultation at this point and we're going to continue with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the immediate actions that the government is looking at is developing a major public education campaign. I think this should be a high priority and one of these immediate actions, because I think when people start to realize and know that the numbers of the caribou are actually declining and where they are declining in and for what reasons, hunters and trappers will take it upon themselves to restrict their harvesting limits and they won't be shooting five caribou. Non-resident or resident hunters won't be taking the limits that they're allowed to take because people have respect for the resource that's been available for hundreds of years, and they just won't be going out there and shooting all the caribou because if they know what the numbers are like, then I'm sure hunters and trappers and northerners in general will take it upon themselves to make sure that there are some restrictions on it. So will the Minister consider going out on a full-blown education campaign to let everybody know where we stand exactly? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member that a public education piece is very important and that's why we laid it out as one of our first items that we want to move on and we are going to do that. I appreciate the Member's comments and I'd look forward to any advice he wants to give in terms of how to best educate the public, the children and the hunters and public at large. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Another point on the immediate actions that has been developed here over the next six months is one where everybody's allowed to harvest bulls only. That I don't think is going to work, Mr. Speaker. I don't know if the Minister read the paper a couple months ago where an elder specifically stated why it's not good to hunt the bulls only. This is probably one of the big reasons why the caribou are actually in decline, is because all the old, experienced, big bulls are being shot. Because we have young bulls that are inexperienced and don't know where to go, they're leading the herd into areas where there's no food, where there's high predation, and everything is just working against them. So I don't know, I don't see how the hunting bulls only is going to help the caribou herds' declining numbers. Could the Minister maybe scratch that one off the immediate action list...

---Applause

...and make sure that there is a public campaign that shows people what the differences are between the bulls, and the females, and the yearlings, and the young bulls and stuff? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Miltenberger. Order.

There was a lot of bull in that question.

---Laughter

---Interjection

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the Member. The value of that plan, of that particular issue, is the concern of protecting the cows and the calves to allow the cows to be able to bring the calves to maturity. Most of the resident hunters and the sport hunters do bulls only anyway as a matter of course. This is not a restriction at this point on subsistence harvesting.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the March 10th edition of the Inuvik Drum, the Minister was quoted as saying "...when we demonstrate we have the facilities that would be fully used and we don't need any southern resources, then I'll be happy to move on with this project..." I want to know how we can demonstrate that these facilities will be fully used when we don't even have them?

---Applause

If we had the facilities there guaranteed, Mr. Speaker, they would be used. I'd like to ask the Minister what he based his comments on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take the concerns of the Members of this House very seriously and I do recollect the motion they made in the House very clearly, and one of the reasons that I asked Dr. Chalmers be brought back in is that we charted out a course of action based on a report from 2001 called A State of Emergency that was very, very critical of the current state of affairs back then. Looking at the work that she did, the extensive consultation up and down the valley, with all the communities, with all the user groups and stakeholders, we chose a course of action. Two years out, three years out there was some concern or question being raised about let's forget about community wellness workers, let's start building facilities. I asked Dr. Chalmers to come back and give us a check, an interim check, to see where we are, where we're headed, and is it the right way? Are we doing the right things? I asked her to look at Nats'ejee K'eh, the community services and the requirement for treatment facilities, and she did that. She gave me her best advice; advice that we took from her back in 2001. She gave us her further advice based on what she's seen and the work that we've done and the investments we've made. That's why we've done what we've done and that's what I've based my decision on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure Dr. Chalmers is fully qualified to write reports. But when you have the Gwich'in Tribal Council wellness manager and the chair of the Inuvik Interagency both disagreeing with the Minister's comments, and they live there, and they know what's needed in Inuvik, and somebody comes in and writes up a report saying we don't need this, I think we've got it backwards, Mr. Speaker. So I'd like to know from the Minister, who decides if a treatment centre should be built in the Beaufort-Delta, and I hope it's not Dr. Chalmers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Chalmers has extensive experience up in the Beaufort-Delta, has worked in Tl'oondih and McPherson and throughout that whole area. But at the end of the day, she is just a consultant and she does her report, and she did the work we asked her to do. Now it's up to myself, as Minister of the department, the authorities, this House, to make plans and to plan for the provision of this service, which we've done and continue to do.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Dr. Chalmers worked in those communities, but she hasn't lived in those communities most of her life. So the people there, again I say, they know what they need in the Beaufort-Delta. Speaking to experienced social workers and their opinion is that Beaufort-Delta needs a residential treatment centre. They also said that they need a family program on the land. So I'd like to ask the Minister if he consults with his frontline workers, people in these communities who have lived there their whole life, that know what's needed in their communities? I'd like to ask the Minister if his department, not some consultant, his department consults with these people. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the reasons we have, and the value of boards and authorities, is that there are community representatives from communities that sit at the table and represent their communities. As well, there's work done in the communities. I travel periodically through the communities and get feedback on a number of issues. This is one of them. So, yes, we value that feedback. A lot of this comes down to there may be a difference in philosophy about what's the best course of action and the focus right now on community development versus facilities, but the also very basic fundamental issue, as you've heard the Minister of Finance raise, is that we have far more needs than we have resources and we have to make choices. In this particular case, we chose to focus our resources that we do have on the development of community wellness workers, mental health workers and clinical supervisors at the community level. Thank you.