Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few comments. The Minister spoke a bit here about the fur industry, and it’s thriving fairly well, but there are some concerns that the fur prices might be a bit low this year. A number of my constituents raised the concern that prices for fox, beaver and I believe it was mink are fairly low. For the amount of work that they go through to harvest these animals, you know, $35 advances are very low and there’s really no incentive for people to harvest them.
The populations are really increasing and we need to do something here to help manage that. I know it is under ENR, but the Minister’s department does look after the Mackenzie Valley fur industry. So there’s that there.
I also wanted to bring up the film industry. I know there are more funds for the film industry this year. I’d just like to ask the Minister, is there a separate fund for… You know, I have a constituent who’s really interested in making films. He actually made one this past year about the centennial canoe race that happened down the Mackenzie River, and the team from Fort McPherson won at that time and they documented that. It’s really very interesting and good to educate our youth as well. They are planning to do another one on square dancing and jigging and all the people who were influential in that, and other areas, as well, traditional harvesting. You know, they’d like to film a lot more of that and also pass that on to our youth in the community. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.