Thank you, Mr. Chair. The country foods file, what we have really been looking at doing is increasing our presence in the communities on what people are thinking in terms of country foods and what else we could be doing differently in the department. What we have looked at doing is combining, actually, two strategies, the country food strategy and the traditional economy strategy, to come up with one that is an ENR sustainable livelihoods action plan.

In looking at the country foods, right now, what we have in place, these were funds that were given to ENR in terms of the development of a country food strategy and related programming. What we have decided to do, like I said, is to realign those two strategies into a sustainable livelihood action plan. What we saw is a significant overlap in terms of the issues. Versus going to the communities multiple times, asking similar questions, and going around the same topic, we wanted to have that discussion.

What we have developed is a large outreach program that is going to be done by the end of March. We are having two large regional meetings that will have designates from community and regional Indigenous governments, renewable resource boards, and land and water boards, as well as 18 small community events. What we are doing with the community events is we are actually going with canvas tents into the community to talk to community members about what they want in terms of this file. We see it as such an important file, and we want to hear from elders, community members, Indigenous governments, and organizations. We want to make sure we have a real robust sustainable livelihoods plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.