Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to just comment briefly on this. I want to start off by thanking the NWT Tourism and the board. They were in favour of Bill 9 and the deletion of the Tourist Deposit Assurance Program.

Given what’s happened to the barren-ground caribou outfitters in the Northwest Territories, I think the government’s got some bigger issues on its plate that it’s going to have to deal with. In the money that is being thrown at this assurance program, and it’s over $300,000, Mr. Chairman, that’s money that could be better spent looking at programming and ways to keep what operators that we have left in some kind of existence until caribou numbers come back or until we can actually count the caribou correctly in a two or three-year period where we know exactly how many caribou are out there. I think that work is being done. It’s going to continue to be done and, hopefully, the numbers aren’t as bad as they say they are and the industry will rebound, because it is a multi-million industry here in the Northwest Territories. We have to find a way to get our operators through these rough times.

Again, I support the bill. Like I said, this is going to happen, Bill 9 is going to happen, but we need to come up with a plan to replace, with that money, replace some support and some help to the

outfitting industry here in the Northwest Territories, because they’ve been hit right between the eyes with the crash in the caribou numbers. We’ve got to do something about that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.