Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regard to the training of harvesters, as I mentioned, come April 1st , working towards April 1st , we are
doing a review of the programs and we want to figure out a plan going forward on some of the areas where there are potential gaps that the communities have been identifying in the past. The Member is right about the trapper certification program. Absolutely those are types of areas we want to look at.
You mentioned the gun safety program. We recently completed with our partners in the Northwest Territories, including the Aboriginal governments and stakeholders, et cetera, a hunter education program which has the firearms safety component in there which will allow youth and others to acquire their possession and acquisition licences. We want to link it to the traditional economy stuff, to the larger initiatives such as the partnerships, as you mentioned, opportunities where these types of things can be delivered.
Spring hunts you mentioned, but there are many other forums out there where we can collaborate with others. We have already started some
engagement on a pilot project in the Northwest Territories, on-the-land funding collaborative. So that’s one area where we’ve started, but there are other areas that we want to build on going forward. The Take a Kid Trapping Program is a link to this as well. There is $312,000 coming over for that program. Again, we want to explore the Take a Kid Trapping Program.
On the caribou with the renewable resource boards, the numbers we had last spring from the reconnaissance survey were alarming for Bluenose-East and Bathurst herds. Through the process we started in August and ended recently, we’ve landed on an approach for the interim for this harvesting season. That included working with the renewable resources boards. Thank you.