Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of caribou tag reduction has been discussed for several years now. There was an attempt last year to have the tags reduced. That couldn't take place. In 2005, it was the desire to bring the tags down to 924. However, the department couldn't follow that because the outfitters sold more than that by the time the decision was to be made. So that was bumped up to 1,163. Last year, the Minister sat up in this House in session during February and announced that we would be going back to 1999 tag allocations. However, there was going to be another survey done. Based on that survey, a decision on tag allocation will be made. We met with the outfitters again in the spring. We met with the outfitters again in the fall. We had a workshop and compiled all of the information and looked at the number that we could allocate. That was a small number by standards of what was being accrued for the outfitters. But we have to remember, when the tag allocation was increased in the year 2000, the allocation was for an interim basis. The outfitters were all in agreement and all acknowledged the fact that tags would be reduced if the caribou numbers went down. As soon as we got the numbers, we put it and packed it up in proposal form. We shared it with ITI. We brought it forward to Cabinet and then we brought it forward to Wekeezhii. Wekeezhii indicated they were not in a position to make a decision. That is a real problem, so they needed to go through a process where they have a public hearing and then look at the results and provide the information back to us. The outfitters will also be making
a presentation to the Wekeezhii board and I believe the Tlicho Government will also be making a presentation to the Wekeezhii board. That information will come forward and we have committed that we will, by June of this year, provide information on caribou quota for next year. However, in the interim, we had to make a decision on what the caribou numbers were going to be for this year because the outfitters needed to know what they were dealing with. We surveyed the caribou outfitters and looked at how many tags were already sold. At that time, there were already 700 and some sold and limited to 750 for this year, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.