With all due respect, there’s no point in increasing the production or the harvesting of fish on Great Slave Lake if we don’t have a comprehensive plan to figure out how that translates into a good living for the people who are out there and engaged in this activity. That’s why I think the government needs to come up with a very comprehensive plan. Like I said, the fishermen cannot be the ones that are phoning up to a marketing desk and trying to find ways of processing and finding markets for that fish.
So to the issue of a comprehensive plan, and I applaud the Minister for undertaking another strategy, but the problem is that in the past every time the Fishermen’s Federation came to the government in despair, the government just threw them another bone. Oh, you want some new equipment? Oh here’s some new equipment. Oh, you want us to do another study on how to change the way we go about fishing? Oh, here is some money for a study. You want some money to subsidize your freight to market? Well, here’s a freight subsidy. And it’s never been comprehensive, it’s always been piecemeal; it’s always just throw them some quick answer. We need an in-house, made-in-the-Northwest Territories commercial fishing strategy that will allow us to have the product here, export the product and allow the fishermen to earn a good living. Does this strategy terms of reference include that? Thank you.