Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that it's sort of early days in terms of the agricultural strategy and when we're trying to get everything all set up and move forward with this. Perhaps the Minister would agree to sit down with me and members of the egg board whenever he's back in Hay River and we can sort of discuss this issue and maybe figure out collaboratively a way to come up with a solution. Would the Minister be open to that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Schumann.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I would gladly do that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Schumann. Anything further, Mr. Simpson?

Nothing further.

Further questions? Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just looking at page 208, the revenue summary. I'd like to ask just some questions with some of the lines we see here. First, on the nominee program, in the 2016-2017 actuals was that $42,000. Now we see the proposed budget in the last fiscal year was near half that amount. What explains the drop from 2016-2017 to 2017-2018? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The fees have remained a historical budget at our current plan. Nominee program revenue is for the application fees, and the budget is based on an estimated number of applicants in any year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In 2016-2017, we budgeted double the amount of applicants. Sorry, those were the actuals, okay. Again in 2016-2017, we had nearly twice the amount that we budgeted for in the preceding year. What explains the drop in that number of applicants? That's what I'm looking for. How do we understand? I understand how the budget works or how the budget works for this program. Why did we lose so many applicants when the program was doing so well?

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These are just estimates, and we are glad to see these numbers exceed the forecast. The actuals in that particular year for $42,000 were the actuals, but we continue to forecast $22,000. If these numbers continue to climb, well, maybe we'll look at raising that actual number. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This line item is very similar to what has happened with the nominee program. It's a historical number, but we're looking at increasing that because then the number of applicants has actually gone up a little bit here already, and we will continue to revise these numbers as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

Thank you. Can the Minister account for the difference in mineral, oil and gas royalties? I know some of these issues were raised, but if he could just clearly account for the difference between the 2017-2018 revised estimates and this year's estimates. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These numbers are done on a quarterly basis. We based the royalty forecast referred by the Diamond, Royalties and Financial Analysis Division. The model uses the mining regulations, uses historical data and forward-looking information from companies based on publicly available information, forecast changes in the market, and mine plans change including rough diamond prices and foreign exchange. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

Thank you to the Minister for providing the technical details of how it's calculated, but I'm looking for the reasons why there is a drop from $31 million to $13 million. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.