Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question again is with respect to the fishing industry. About 20 years ago, I worked for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Hay River and at that time, I believe, besides myself, there were 13 people on staff there. The functions they were responsible for were management, conservation protection and inspection. It's my understanding that today I personally know of only one person involved in each of those functions. I personally know of three people who work for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Hay River; there may possibly be more. I guess what that indicates is that the federal government has pulled back quite considerably in their role of overseeing the fishing in the Northwest Territories.

Over the years, they have acquired a tremendous amount of infrastructure in Hay River: docks, land, buildings, equipment, boats, bombardiers. I understand that there is talk of Fisheries and Oceans being amalgamated with the Canadian Coastguard. My question to the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism is has the territorial government considered taking over the role of the federal Fisheries and Oceans, like so many other federal departments that have been devolved to the territorial level of government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make it very clear that, in asking these questions, I am asking them as questions. I am not making a statement. I think it is astute to examine these things once in a while. I would also like to ask the Minister, would he concur that possibly this is a function that could be more effectively handled by breaking the monopoly of Freshwater and allowing large-volume operators the option of marketing their own product and perhaps providing support to the smaller operators through some type of cooperative which would be managed by this government, as opposed to a federally legislated organization. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand that some work has been done in this area in the past. When was the last time the issue of the Great Slave Lake fishery was comprehensively examined? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday in my Member's statement, I raised the issue of the Great Slave Lake fishery and the management and marketing of that resource. This industry is very important to the community I represent and I am most interested in seeing that this northern resource, as any other, derive the absolute maximum benefits possible.

When you consider how few species the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation accepts, what little processing takes place in Hay River and how little product and marketing development has occurred in the recent past, perhaps it is time to assess whether the monopoly for the purchase and export is still an effective agency. My question to the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism: Is the present system of marketing and exporting Great Slave Lake fish the most beneficial means? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, commercial fishing is a very important sector of the economy in the area that I represent. For years, I have listened to the pros and cons, the good and the bad aspects of our central fish marketing agency; the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. I have heard the reports of the good old days of commercial fishing when several private buying companies tried and sold our resource to ready markets. I have heard about the good and respectable living that

commercial fishermen made and the money they contributed to Hay River's economy.

However, times have changed and a federally legislated and controlled marketing board moved in and was going to be the answer. Since this has been in place, I continue to hear about things like the lack of adequate prices for our product, the lack of processing and related jobs for northerners, the marketing corporation's resistance to buying less desirable species, which ended up going to waste, and about the lack of efficiency of FFMC in identifying and delivering our world class product to potential markets.

The debates go on. Some like the present system and some don't. What I am concerned about is the resources of the Great Slave Lake. Are we managing it in the best and most sustainable way that we can? Are we receiving the most direct and indirect benefits for our northern residents from this valuable resource? I don't know when this whole issue was looked at last, but I would suggest that the experts on the subject are the commercial fishermen themselves. I would like to see this government undertake a very comprehensive assessment of how this valuable resource is being managed or, should I say, mismanaged. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Bill 11 and Committee Report 2-13(3) and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to suggest something to my colleagues that I have been thinking about. I thought it was an original idea, but since I have mentioned it to a few people, I found out that it is done in other jurisdictions in the country and probably other countries as well.

When most of us ran for public office and perhaps served in public office at a municipal level previous to this, when you talk to people, one of the big drawbacks they have about getting into public office is that they have a fear or an apprehension about speaking in public. I don't know about the rest of the Members, but when I was a student in school, we used to do public speaking as part of our curriculum. We had to stand up in front of the class and speak. For some time, I thought it would be good to initiate some program where we would reinstate a public speaking contest in the schools.

I have an idea of initiating a program whereby we could invite students, perhaps at the grade 7 level, to conduct a public speaking contest from each of the ridings and the winners of those public speaking contests could possibly be brought to Yellowknife and be given the honour of being an MLA for one day in the place of the sitting Members. It is something I want to pursue with the Members. It is an idea at this time. Perhaps if you got the cooperation of a business that could sponsor bringing them here and reintroduce the public speaking in the classroom. Thank you.

--- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister has just raised a perfect example of it where you have a salaried doctor who works for the government; they get paid to provide their services. Then you may also have

a fee-for-service doctor who runs their practice as a business. You could say that is for profit but it's just a different method of payroll. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This area that Mr. Steen has raised is one where there seems to be some controversy or misunderstanding. If Trail Cross is privatized, then it's operated by a private contractor an

what they are compensated for running that contract in that facility; people are calling it profit but it is, in fact, what they're being paid to do. When a government worker goes to work and collects their pay cheque every two weeks, that's their pay cheque, that's what they get paid for doing that; it's not a charitable organization where the government runs it. People get paid to run it. When it's a private contractor, the contractor gets paid, the staff get paid and they cover their overhead.

There are private contractors and then there are charitable, non-profit organizations. The hospital in Hay River was run by a charitable, non-profit organization on a contract basis but sometimes people get those all mixed in together. The Minister can clarify this, but I think that when a health or a social service facility is operated by a private contractor, it might be wrong to say profit. They may be remunerated for providing that service as a private individual as opposed to the government paying people in the public service to do the same thing.