We will commence after a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

Welcome back, committee. I’d like to turn our attention to Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Miltenberger, do you have witnesses you’d like to bring in the Chamber?

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Does committee agree?

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, can you please escort the witnesses in, please.

Minister Miltenberger, if you care to introduce your witnesses to the House, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Ernie Campbell, deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources; and Nancy Magrum, the director of shared services for ITI and ENR. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Campbell, Ms. Magrum, welcome back to the House. Committee, we are on page 13-21, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, forest management, operations expenditures, $32.067. Does committee agree?

Thank you very much. Moving on to 13-22, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, forest management,

grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $100,000.

Contributions, total contributions, $100,000, total grants and contributions, $200,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 13-23, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, forest management, active positions. Any questions?

Seeing none, 13-24 and 13-25, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, wildlife, operations expenditure summary, $15.286 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some questions here with regard to caribou management and caribou quotas and so on. I heard the Minister say when he responded to opening comments where he talked about the resident harvest and that there’s a possibility the resident harvest might be opened up in the fall of this year, of 2013. I didn’t hear him say anything about an opportunity for outfitters to have tags in the fall of 2013 or fall and winter 2013-14.

I am really concerned that our caribou hunt outfitters are in great distress. I know that they have had some assistance through the Sport Hunt Outfitters Marketing Program, but to have facilities sit and basically deteriorate over time through lack of use, that’s what most of them are doing.

It would seem to me that we should be able to provide some tags this fall for outfitters. My understanding, in speaking with the outfitters, is that they don’t want tags for the Bathurst herd. Not all of them, but the majority of them, from what I understand, don’t hunt the Bathurst caribou anyway. They hunt the Bluenose-East and the Ahiak herd. So it would seem to me that if we’re going to open up the Bluenose-East herd to resident hunters, we would also be able to open it up to outfitters and sport hunt outfitters.

So I’d like to know from the Minister, first of all, if there has been any consideration given to providing tags for the caribou outfitters, and I’m coming again from the perspective of a number of these businesses are within the city of Yellowknife. They may not necessarily be my constituents, but they are constituents certainly of other Yellowknife Members and, like I say, they are really struggling. Their businesses are quite likely to fold if we don’t get them some tags sometime soon. So, again, my question with regard to the possibility of providing some caribou tags to outfitters in the fall winter of 13-14. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding – and I’ll ask Mr. Campbell to speak further to this – is that the majority of outfitters that the Member is talking about harvest the Bathurst herd for the most part. We have commenced discussions with the various boards, with the Bluenose-East as well. We’re having discussions with Nunavut as well as the Beverly Qamanirjuaq Board and we’ll be talking to the appropriate Aboriginal governments, as well, about the Ahiak-Beverly herd and the numbers that have come in. At this point the restrictions in the Bathurst ban area are going to continue until the next census and the population count is done.

So chances are there will be no change to those conditions in the banned area, and we are working, as I indicated, with the various appropriate parties and governments and boards to review the resident hunter harvest as a first step towards getting back so that Northerners can all harvest, keeping in mind that before we can actually move to the full unrestricted harvest for everybody, we also have to be prepared to say the herds can sustain unrestricted Aboriginal harvest as well. So we have some careful steps that we do have to follow. Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence, I’d ask Mr. Campbell to speak a little more specifically about the location of the various outfitters. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister and the deputy minister. I want to emphasize that I am not asking on behalf of the outfitters for tags for the Bathurst caribou. That’s not what they’re asking. They’re asking for tags for the Bluenose-East, and I was pleased to hear the deputy minister mention Point Lake because that is one area, one outfitter who specifically believes that the Bluenose-East are near their camp and would like some tags for the Bluenose-East herd.

So it seems to me that we’ve got perhaps not a lack of communication per se, but a lack of full understanding of where each party stands, perhaps.

I guess my next question to the Minister would be whether or not he and the department would initiate a discussion with the outfitters, certainly the outfitters towards the northern end of the range, I guess. My real concern is that if we don’t get tags to the outfitters within this next 12 months, so to speak, that they’re going to fold. They cannot keep operating with no business and they have tried to diversify, but even the diversification has been a real struggle and they’re basically losing money every year.

The outfitting business was bringing millions and millions of dollars into Yellowknife and the NWT and we have lost that revenue. I think there’s still an opportunity to get it back. I think there’s still some interest in caribou hunts from the people that take advantage of it. Apparently they’re still getting requests from clients. Are there caribou tags? We want to come and do hunts. That interest is only going to last for a short period of time. Odds are pretty good that if there are no tags next winter and the winter after that, the inquiries are going to stop coming and then these guys are truly out of luck.

Will the department look at meeting with the outfitters that some of us Members have been talking to and seriously considering their request for a limited number of tags for the Bluenose-East herd in fall-winter 2013-2014?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Miltenberger.