Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was very interesting, that information there. Just to continue a little further, who is the Minister working with here on a local level? As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to see that this is moving forward, that all of our aurora industry partners here will benefit. So who is he working with on the ground here in the Northwest Territories on this matter? If he's talking to Alaska, he must be talking to somebody here.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I've had discussions with my departmental officials, my deputy minister, the NWTT, and at least I think all but one of the tourism operators at this point are aware of the discussions I had in Alaska. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.

Okay. Just taking it aside now, I'm just trying to understand this concept, Mr. Chairman. Japanese people are going to fly all the way to Fairbanks at a certain amount of value, and then we're going to convince them, for maybe 500 bucks, to fly all the way to Yellowknife after they've already seen the aurora. I'm just trying to understand the principle of it. I'm not saying discussions are bad or something, I'm just trying to understand how do we entice them now to get on another plane to fly further east just to look at aurora, and then get back on that plane, fly back to maybe Fairbanks or Anchorage, and then get back on their plane to fly to Japan. So I'm just trying to understand how that works. If I was, which I am going to, if I was to suggest an idea, I would say why don't we consider concepts about trying to open up a corridor? You know, the old build it and they will come? Well, why don't we try to open up a corridor from Vancouver where we help take some of the JTB middlemen out of the equation? It's really cutting into the profits of all three of our major operators, and that's really playing a big role because if we can get some of this tourism industry into Vancouver, all three of our major operators can benefit as a whole. Personally, I'd like to see them all benefit because what's good for one is good for them all. I mean it would probably run around $40,000 to get a plane in the air to go there and back and if we could find some ways to work these things out, because we're going to spend a lot of money...or I fear that we'll spend a lot of money and focus trying to get the leftovers in Fairbanks as opposed to somebody fresh in Vancouver who hasn't seen them, and going back to the substantial difference the Japanese people say about the quality of the aurora in the Northwest Territories versus elsewhere. My fear is we're going to spend a lot of focus on trying to get leftover people in Fairbanks to come the rest of the way when they've already seen it, and they'd be, well, why would we bother if we've already seen it. So what about the focus about trying to create a bit of an aurora connector sort of flight between Vancouver and Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I'm talking about coordination and collaboration between our two jurisdictions. First of all, let me say that I would rely on our industry people and their industry people to sit down and talk about what best makes sense. There may be some ideas that I have that wouldn't be feasible, and so, Mr. Chairman, I would rely on the experts to drive much of this discussion. But just let me say my initial thoughts that if we used, just for example some ballpark figures, maybe it's a $50 million a year industry worldwide and maybe we have 25 percent of it and Alaska has 20 percent of the industry. I'm thinking if we can collectively brand northern North America and recognize Scandinavia as a competitor, maybe we can grow the pie from a $50 million

industry, through joint efforts, to a $75 million industry. Maybe we can grow our collective North American share from 45 percent to 55 percent. You can image the impact that that could have on our industry. Instead of pitting ourselves against Alaska, trying to compete with them on cost or distance, working together with that jurisdiction, and maybe there can be joint marketing efforts on the ground in Japan so that we don't have to both duplicate the fully burdened cost of such efforts. So there are a number of collaborative efforts one might imagine, Mr. Chairman. I'm not going to profess to be an expert in understanding this industry. I would simply try to marry up our industry with theirs and see if we could come to some agreement on how to move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The only last thing I will add, and I thought that was a very interesting sort of take on it that he had suggested about taking on the world as opposed to taking on each other. That's a good philosophy: stop dividing and conquering, and work together. I like that philosophy. The only fear I have in this is timing. I am not sure how much longer our three aurora operators will have here. They are all on life support in their own sort of way saying the numbers are very low and it will be challenging because if they owe money, they have to pay the Business Development Corp back and if they aren't getting the warm bodies in here buying those packages, they may not be able to hold out until this sort of polar transportation or polar visit perspective comes onboard. I am not opposed to it by any means. My only fear in this regard is the fact of how long it may take to get some discussions out to even turn it into a real initiative. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, on a go-forward basis, we think there is a lot of potential in this industry and we want to work with our industry partners. Some of the things that we are proposing to do, a potential investment in infrastructure to allow for transcontinental flights, for instance, is not going to happen in the following few weeks or months even, Mr. Chairman. This is a few year plan, so a number of things that we are doing are looking out further down the time horizon. We think we need to make these infrastructure investments. We think we can make a business case for it, but that doesn't preclude us from sitting down and working individually with each one of these businesses and we do, whether it's through some help with their loans, whether it's through some help with some of their programming or business planning that we do, Mr. Chairman.

So, yes, we recognize that this industry is under pressure and we are prepared to work with them here locally on the ground and will continue to talk with NWTT about their programming and marketing support. We need to have a handle and need to better understand that that is the best and most effective way we can market these products. The question here about results earlier, we need to know whether our marketing efforts are having an affect in Japan. We sense the urgency, Mr. Chairman. Let me say that we know that we can't correct all of these problems overnight. We are hopeful that these businesses we have now currently running can make it through this rough patch, but they may have to slightly change their business model to do that. We will be there to work through that with them. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thanks, committee. I don't have anybody else on the list for this page. So we will now move to page 10-23, activity summary, economic development, operations expenditure summary, $25.084 million.

Thank you, committee. Page 10-25, activity summary, economic development, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $847,000.

Contributions and it's continued on page 10-26 and 10-27, economic development, grants and contributions, total contributions, $11.616 million. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am wondering if the Minister can give us a breakdown on the tourism industry marketing contribution that's listed as roughly $2.4 million. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.HON. BRENDAN BELL: That contribution goes to the NWTT. I can get a breakdown in terms of how the $2.4 million is divided. The marketing budget for NWTT is about $1.6 million of that, Mr. Chairman. The rest goes into core funding for the organization. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask the Minister, support for the fur industry is $15,000. Has it always been this type of money in terms of this item here for the fur industry? What is this about anyway, supporting the fur industry? What is this money going for?

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, this is one aspect of support and this is just the Fur Institute. It seems to me, and I stand to be corrected by my deputy minister, but there has been some research into humane trapping methods and these kinds of things. So this is very much a contribution to that institute to continue this work. We have a number of international treaties we have to comply with. Mr. Chairman, this is not all of the contribution to harvesters. That falls under another area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya, anything further? Mahsi, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Minister mentioned the harvesting and it was getting me to think are any of our furs being targeted in the international market as problem furs or anything they are focussing in on as inhumane? I see that there is a lot of...