Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to forest management, one of the things that the communities I represent is that forestry is a very important element to the community’s ability and sustainability to use wood heat and using wood as a product for building cabins. To use those products, we have wood misers in all the communities I represent. They are fully utilized through different programs to use that type of product and ensuring that there are workshops in the different communities where different people

come from southern Canada who are experts in the field of different uses of wood products: the harvesting of wood, the management of wood, the usage of wood for constructing different products. Fort McPherson is part of the workshop where they built a tourism information cabin. They built it in just a matter of a couple of days as part of the workshop. I was impressed with what they were trying to do. It took the community’s efforts, along with funds received from Indian Affairs through the band. This is the type of stuff the Department of Environment and Natural Resources should be doing in our communities, rather than having to use federal money through Indian Affairs to do these types of workshops.

I’d like to ask the department what we’re doing to develop a cottage industry in our communities when it comes to usage of wood products and being able to use the different expertise that is out there to assist us in developing that industry in the communities, generating employment, and being able to use the resources around us such as the forest resources. I’d like to know where the department is going on that and what we are doing to really stimulate that part of our economy.