Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Members will have noticed, I'm trying to focus my attention and my comments and Member's statements during this session on the principle that this government says that they embrace, and that is for self-reliant, sustainable communities and people in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, I think part of that is to examine the resources we have on our own doorstep which we do not partake of for whatever reason. I talked about the commercial fishery the other day and what a valuable and big resource that is, but we can't figure out how to take advantage of it.
The one I want to talk about today, though, and I'm sure there will be pushback on this, is that anyone who has travelled on the road, Highway No. 3, the famous Highway No. 3 between Yellowknife and Fort Providence, would have noticed that there are these large herds of big beasts close to the road. These are our bison. This is a bison sanctuary. It has been there for many years. I don't know what the herd number is today, but anybody who likes bison meat, how many people import bison meat from Alberta so they can eat it here in the Northwest Territories?
Mr. Speaker, this must be ludicrous. Again, anybody looking at us from another planet would wonder why we say we can't afford food, we can't afford the cost of living in the Northwest Territories and yet we have resources like this standing literally at our door.
Now, I understand that the caribou herds are in decline and we're not sure of all the reasons for that and the caribou are certainly easier to hunt than a bison. Most people could handle a caribou. After they've killed it and butchered it, they could handle it themselves. Bison are a little bit more challenging, no doubt, but they are still a very nutritious food source and unless they are sacred or endangered or something else, for the life of me, I cannot understand why a herd that is healthy, disease-free and numbering in the thousands cannot be harvested at a greater rate than about, I think, 12 tags a year.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would have questions today for the Minister of ENR about this. We have a very successful commercial muskox harvest higher up in the Arctic. We have meat and we've even processed the hides from those muskox and it works. So, Mr. Speaker, I'll have questions today for the Minister of ENR. Why can't we eat those bison? Thank you.