Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to be quick. I’ll save most of my questions for the page by page, the detail.
Following up on Mr. Jacobson’s comments, you’ve indicated that you’ve allocated $300,000 in the proposed main estimates to market bear, barren land caribou and polar bears. I’m curious if you’re working with ENR. The number of tags the outfitters
have for barren land caribou seem to be shrinking. We’re down to I think 750 now, which has actually put a significant hit on the industry, a multi-million dollar industry bringing new dollars into the Northwest Territories. I’m glad to see you’re trying to do something, but if we continue to drop the number of tags it’s not going to be worth doing anything. I’d like to hear that you’re working with ENR to try to keep that industry alive.
Quite happy to hear about the markets for the genuine Mackenzie Valley furs. I think that’s great. A lot of good work is being done there.
When we get into the page by page I want to know a little bit more about what it is that you’re proposing to do with the NWT Fishermen’s Federation. We’re not even coming close to getting our quota used, which seems like a real shame. It’s a good product. We should be doing anything we can to help them. I see you say you’re doing something for $250,000, but I’m really curious what that is. Are you working with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board -- I believe they're in Winnipeg -- to try to find ways to get our product to market, allowing us to charge slightly different rates so that we can actually sell the stuff? I’d be very curious to hear what you’re doing there.
Happy to hear that you’re working with the Territorial Farmers’ Association in the area of agriculture, however, it seems to be pretty focused on the Community Gardens Initiative. I think farming and agriculture, we have a huge opportunity here to create some local economy around that. I’d like to know what you’re doing with the Territorial Farmers’ Association. Are you engaging them about bigger projects or are you guys spending all your time focusing on the Community Gardens Initiative, which is good, but not enough.
You didn’t talk very much in here at all about collaborating with Education, Culture and Employment in the way of arts. I do see that you are working with them on other stuff, and that’s good because I like to see the silos breaking down a little bit. But I know that you’re doing a lot of work with the Olympics 2010 and whatnot. I know you’re doing things to promote arts and crafts, but if you’re going to be getting involved with the 2010 Olympics, Education, Culture and Employment provides a significant number of grants to local artists; painters, sculptors, musicians, singers, songwriters. I know they give a lot of money. A lot of really talented people are making albums and producing unique projects with ECE money. If you’re going to be going down and working for the Olympics, trying to get our image down there, I think it would be really important for you to engage with Education, Culture and Employment and find out who’s getting those grants to do projects.
The reason I say that is because I know that a lot of people in the past have received the grants from Education, Culture and Employment, they get the money and nobody knows what they’ve done. Nobody sees the product. I know the CDs are out there, I know the paintings are out there, but I never see the government standing up and saying we’re supporting these people, these are the products they’re producing, this is the music they’re writing, this is the music they’re out there singing. I’d like to see those individuals. If you’re going to engage anybody, get them down to the Olympics as part of your initiative to support and promote the Northwest Territories in there. I’d like to hear from you if, in fact, you guys are working with Education, Culture and Employment getting those names and finding out what those people are up to.
I do have a number of questions, but mostly I’m just responding to your opening remarks. When we get into the detail, I’ll ask some specific questions page by page.