Mr. Chair, there are some great mysteries out there and there doesn’t seem to be anything else we can do. I am aware that we are permitting some harvest on this herd, despite this situation and failure to recover after three years of closure. I even have heard that those tags we do permit are not able to be fulfilled because of the small population and difficulty in finding these caribou. It’s, indeed, a grave situation. I know there’s certainly cultural loss happening amongst many cultures, perhaps all cultures of the Northwest Territories, as a result of this situation.
I agree with the Minister; they had to step in. I am just very disappointed that they didn’t step in much before this. It certainly wasn’t news to anybody. There was a trend over many, many surveys, as the Minister well knows, and the destruction that was going on along the winter road was obvious to many people. Yet we are allowing some harvests to continue because we are taking a responsible approach and we recognize a need out there.
However, let me contrast that with the Bluenose-East where, for three years now, we are in the third year now, where this population has been at, according to our survey information, near record numbers. Our policy, as I understand it, is there’s a 4 percent harvestable surplus of a herd especially once it reaches those kinds of numbers. That is 4,000 animals. We decided to permit, as a government, 2,400 with open harvest by Aboriginal people, as is correct given their special rights. Those people have been taking under 1,900 caribou. For years now, others who have been completely closed, no recognition that they have an interest either, completely closed out from this harvestable surplus.
I appreciate the Minister is finally going to move on this and encourage the board to look at it, but I just don’t get the sense that there is anybody speaking up for those without Aboriginal rights here. I’m wondering – the Minister wants the new numbers – are we going to set the standard before we get the new numbers or are we going to change it after we get the numbers. People are becoming suspect. I hope the Minister will consider those sorts of things.
I completely agree that conservation is first and foremost and I agree with order. We need to provide for Aboriginal rights. We need to provide for resident hunters. We need to provide for the sport harvest for outfitters. But here we have 4,000 surplus animals, according to government policy,
and at least 2,100 of those are not being taken advantage of, or any portion thereof. Again, I think resident harvesters are talking pretty modest numbers to make people happy. We are talking opportunity, not necessarily animals.
Our outfitters, I understand that there are two of them that are in the area that biologists have told them they are taking Bluenose-East caribou primarily, perhaps almost exclusively. Those are the outfitters that I think we are completely concerned about in this case, because the Bathurst simply cannot take any more harvest. We know that. Whereas the Bluenose has sat there unharvested, despite demonstrable surplus. That is where we’d like the Minister to not just pose a question to the board but encourage the board to consider opportunity.
These outfitters, again, are faced with the substantial costs of maintenance, basic maintenance, insurance and so on. They’re getting to the point where they’ll have to walk away from it because of bankruptcy. And we know that because the government waited until the very last moment to cancel tags, they were left with a whole year’s resupply. So there’s a lot of fuel, for example, sitting out in these sites deteriorating over time and these outfitters have no resources to clean that fuel up. So there are environmental cleanup aspects as well.
I’m sure the Minister is aware of these sorts of things. He says he needs to take some careful steps. I just wonder if there’s a double standard here. I’m all for careful steps, but I think we should have careful steps for everybody, and when we have a herd that’s up at 100,000 with a surplus of 4,000 according to our policy, and we’re harvesting under 1,900 of those with an open harvest for some of the people, there are some opportunities that I think we’re being irresponsible with.
So I’d appreciate some comments and assurances from the Minister on what we’re going to do to correct this situation, and I do agree with the suggestion to make these automatic, ideally before we go out and survey herds and can change our stance. Thank you.