Thank you, Mr. Chair. In looking at this issue of trying to address the wolf situation, in every community that we went through, as the Minister mentioned, we had very, very strong comments in terms of wolves and what we could do. Being in the Wek'eezhii area, we cannot change a program or come in with a different type of program without submitting a proposal to the Wek'eezhii Renewable Resources Board. We are currently in the process of doing that. We look to have one done shortly that we would have. It would only come into effect in June of this year. If we did nothing, if we didn't look at having an incentive program, we wouldn't have been able to do anything with wolves.
The other thing that we heard when we went into communities was that it costs a lot to go out on the land. We tried, in the department, in a previous version, increasing the amount of money that we had available for wolves. It didn't work. People came back to us and said, "It is not enough money." We went to communities. What we did was we asked them, "How much would it take for you to have the incentive to come in this region?" The last three years, we have averaged in this North Slave region in between 30 and 40 wolves. To date, we already have 20, and the season for doing that type of hunting hasn't really started. It is starting as of the beginning of March.
We have also had a discussion with our partners in Nunavut because, although the options are provided to go and do actual hunting on cabin grounds, that jurisdiction is in Nunavut. We have no say in terms of what Nunavut can do on their lands. They have to go through the same process of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board to get authority to do any sort of reduction exercise.
In looking at the option, we decided we would increase the prices to see whether or not we would have people who would go into those regions. What we found is we have had people who are now saying, "You know what? I am thinking about it." We have a lot of the areas where we have hunters who have now, unfortunately, gotten older and don't go in to do that sort of hunting. If we don't have harvesters in that area, we can't reduce that population.
That is how we approached the situation. It is the only thing that we could really do before June 1st. We decided to increase the levels of the harvest prices. We have had some exceptional feedback from harvesters who are telling us, "Thank you. It is about time." Thank you, Mr. Chair.