Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, just have a few comments and will save my questions for page by page. I’m very pleased with all the support that’s provided to the trapping industry. I think that’s something that at this point, with some people getting laid off, a bit of a…Even the community where there weren’t many people working, they feel the economic downturn a bit and the high cost of living and everything. With trapping getting such good support, I think that it’s helped a lot of the local people. I know they have a high number of furs being sold out of Tu Nedhe.

I’d like to get more into small business development. I think with this department, like, you know, some of the people, just an example, woodcutters. I think they’re a group of people that could be supported in the region. I think ultimately homeowners should go back to burning firewood as a means of reducing costs and so on and also placing some woodstoves in the homes of the elders that get their fuel subsidies to income support. I think that’s an opportunity for the woodcutters to have a little business in the community, provide for their family and provide something that’s less harmful to the environment than diesel fuel. In the long run, it would facilitate some cheaper energy at the community level.

In my Member’s statement today, I talked a bit about a fishing industry. I wasn’t really talking about the whole commercial fishing industry, but rather a small market fishing type of industry similar to trapping and so on. I’m not sure it could ever get as big as trapping, but if you look at some of the same types of support that trappers at the small

community level receive from this department, it may be something that is possible for fishing as well.

I know that in our communities we have a small motel and a couple of bed and breakfasts that certainly could use the support of the department.

People have been involved in some of the arts and crafts that could use support. It’s kind of an interesting dynamic that occurred, I think, with the involvement of a department to go into purchasing moose hides to try to make that product available for people who need to sew moccasins and so on. The way it kind of evolved is that the people actually making the product could no longer afford the moose hides. I guess that’s what you really call a double-edged sword. On one hand you try to provide a little bit of economy to the individuals making the moose hides and, at the same time, you kind of pushed the product costs out of range for the sewers, the craftspeople that are making the product. I guess that’s something that maybe could be looked at for subsidizing this small sector of the business that I’m sure would be much appreciated by the people making the products. We don’t want that to die as a result of the products being too expensive for them to afford.

I guess I’d like to get a bit into the process in which the Business Development Investment Corporation do their business, whether or not they’re going to continue. Are things improving with the department staff in this department; staff doing the actual grassroots work or legwork at the community level and then involving Business Development Investment Corporation, which is a headquarters organization? It would be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say about that. I’ll ask questions about that during the review.

I may have questions on parks, but nothing that really comes to mind at this point with the exception of perhaps looking at sponsorship of the protected areas and so on. Aside from that, I’ll save the rest for page by page.