Mr. Chair, I just want to make a comment to the Minister. When I met with the Colville Lake leadership and they talked about the Fur Program, they are very pleased. Just before the opening of this Assembly, I contacted Colville Lake and I met some of them in Norman Wells and they are really excited. It was just like Christmastime because the snow was coming and they were getting ready and will be going out to the traplines and setting them up, and they said there’s a lot of excitement in the air. That attests to what the Minister says and what the department is saying about the furs that the Colville Lake trappers get.
Along with the other programs that the department has, is there an analysis as to what does it cost to have a trapper get his stuff ready and go out? There are different numbers they have. Some say $5,000, some say $10,000, depending on the length, depending on how far they’re going. That’s a small business, and the Colville Lake people certainly enjoy their business, and certainly the Genuine Mackenzie Fur Program is an ace in the hat there. It’s good. It’s good for them. They wanted to know, other than the land corps and the CHAP program and the programs you have, because gas is quite expensive there and getting stuff ready is quite expensive and there’s not too much work
there, so they rely on it. But they’re very proud people; they’ll do it anyway.
I want to ask the Minister on just some of this…(inaudible)…they can get later on, if he has some of an idea as to what message. We do it as a business. What does it cost to run a business? We do all the numbers. What about trapping?
The other part of this is the trappers asked me to ask the Minister when the furs are being brought down to the States or somewhere in southern Canada, is it possible for one or two of them to go there to witness the auction and sales to see how the international buyers look at the Northwest Territories furs and the furs from Colville Lake? We say about this to each other in the House and Colville furs are quite sought after in the North, so they are very keen and interested to witness it themselves.
Those are my comments for ITI and I am really okay with that.