What exists today is voluntary targets for the Bluenose-East, no resident harvest, no outfitters, no commercial harvest. Just a voluntary harvest for Aboriginal subsistence hunting. So what we have started is the process, given the numbers that we do have that tell us the Bluenose-East, in our opinion, even though we weren’t able to complete the full survey, are in the hundred thousand animal range, that we’re back to being able to sustain additional harvest.
That process has to go through not just ourselves and myself as Minister making the determination, but we have to work with all the appropriate boards, the Wek’eezhii board, the Sahtu board, the Inuvialuit board. We’ve initiated that process to have that discussion. We’ll look at what’s possible.
Right now we’re looking at reinstating the resident harvest. If in fact the discussions lead us down the path that Ms. Bisaro referenced where the general determination in the minds of all the folks that are involved in this are that it could in fact be expanded, then we’ll, of course, look at those recommendations from the various boards as well. It’s very rare that a Minister will reject the recommendations of boards. It’s remote but, yes, we’re going to look for the advice of the boards based on the best information we have.