Thank you, Mr. Chair. The free timber cutting permits are, again, used as a management tool to assess what fuel biomass in the Northwest Territories is being used by residents. It absolutely is not a mechanism to infringe on people’s right to gather fuel wood, including driftwood. Driftwood has always been part of free timber cutting permits. Again, it’s a management tool for us to use in planning purposes for not just the government but for our
partners, as well, going forward on what’s being used for fuel wood in the Northwest Territories.
It is, no doubt, an area where we’ve been very, very flexible over the years. Our officers do carry them with them and work with the residents. Again, it’s to manage that resource. It’s to identify where people can harvest fuel wood for personal use so there are no conflicts with private landowners, leaseholders, et cetera, and we recognize that going forward we always want to manage the fuel wood that’s being used in the Northwest Territories.
Going forward the intent is to update our forest management legislation, and we’re hoping in the life of this government we will come forward with a legislative proposal. Again, we’ll undertake that exercise, hopefully in the life of the next government, in the same manner that we’ve done with the Wildlife Act, Species at Risk, et cetera, with those partners of ours having a major influence on how our legislation is crafted and we’ll get into areas such as free timber cutting permits, et cetera. But at this point it’s a management tool that we use to manage the use of the fuel wood in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.