Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All our information that has been gathered over the last couple of years indicates that this herd has been declining. It's crashing. We're probably at the 50 percent of the population. Our view, the tag allocation, there is no sustainable yield. We have looked at how we can continue to provide efforts to save the herd and at the same time provide tags for commercial hunting. Our actions are based on the numbers that we've gathered for the Bathurst herd and we've provided an estimation of 4 percent yield. That proposal has gone to the Wekweezhii board and in the event now that Wekweezhii has indicated that they're not going to be providing a recommendation to us until sometime in March, or not do the hearings until March and then the recommendation in April. We went ahead and decided that we had to make a decision so the outfitters could have a number they could work with. We looked at the tags that were sold up to early January, I think January 8th. The hunts that were sold were forecasted to be or predicted to be at 750 and set our number accordingly.

Now, my job is the healthy future of the caribou herd. That's where my focus is. We can't have an industry if we have no caribou. So we have laid out a very thorough Caribou Strategy, management plan, that looks at a number of things; first of all, to engage partners. I think we've been working on that front for some time now to talk to all the different organizations and governments, to bring them to where everybody understands the situation we're in. Also we have to provide information for management.

...to engage partners. I think we have been working on that front for some time now to talk to all the different organizations and governments to bring them to where everybody understands the situation we are in. Also, we have to provide information for management. The third thing is to start working on education compliance. We also have to work on managing human activity. That is one of the areas that we have some direct involvement and can make some decisions that will have an impact on the herd. We also have to be able to look at the area of addressing hardships. So there are still a lot of different areas that we need to provide a lot more information. But, Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is the interest of the herd is in the forefront for us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.