Thanks to the Minister’s comments. I appreciate that. I think this is an opportunity to do some serious navel gazing to see how well we’ve done and how productive our work has been with internal efforts versus through contributions. I know there seems to be an effort out there that restricts contributions to projects that are less than an acre in size. To me, that’s completely crazy. It ignores the size of our communities and so on and I have to wonder where that’s coming from.
I think the Minister is on the right track and good, full discussions on this with all of our partners who are out there doing the real work would be a good way to go. That is all I have on gardening.
Maybe just let me throw in a comment on fisheries. I know that it is dear to some folks’ heart. The
Minister mentioned in discussions – I believe it was yesterday; it seems like several days ago – the Great Bear Lake trout. I completely agree with him. I have eaten at the same table as the Minister. That is a pretty amazing fish.
The difficulty is the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board. It becomes lake trout from somewhere in Canada. That has always been the problem. It’s still the problem. At one point, the fishers were going to get out of fishing and that was reversed, but it is such a dilemma that we are losing out considerably. We used to ship fish from Great Slave Lake to Chicago in the ‘60s and get over $1.50 a pound, big bucks in those days. Then along came this operation and that’s gone. So it’s a sad state compared to what our potential is. I look forward to any comments the Minister has on how we can do it. It is a tough one, I am the first to admit, but we do need to deal with it somehow. Thank you, Madam Chair.