Thank you, Mr. Chair. The BDIC’s mandate is to provide for business

opportunities to create jobs. We have a subsidiary program which operates on the premise that it’s better to have people working, even if the business operation is losing money. So if you can create jobs and if the government or if the corporation has to provide a top-up so that jobs are created, we are prepared to do that. We are mandated by the Financial Management Board, so for every job created, we can top up the contribution up to a maximum of $25,000 per job. So we have a number of subsidiaries that operate on that basis. Also I’m pleased to say that we have a number of businesses that have been started up on that basis and were repatriated to either Aboriginal Development Corporation or an aboriginal band controlled corporation, so they take over ownership and full operation.

We also have the mandate to issue preferred shares in participating business development. In the cases that you mentioned, the Fort McPherson Canvas Shop has been operating for a long time. It has products that are renowned for how well it’s constructed and so on. Again, it’s a subsidiary of BDIC. We have approached some of the development corporations and they have seen fit not to invest at this time up until now, but we would be quite prepared to approach them again to see if circumstances have changed so that they are now interested in investing in these kinds of corporations.

We are always looking for opportunities and if there are opportunities in the forestry section, we are prepared to examine them. We have, as a corporation, been involved in forestry in other communities, so we have some experience in that sector as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.