Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, several weeks ago I called upon the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources to organize a small and limited caribou summit about organizing the chiefs, the right type of personnel, and I’m not talking about a flood of bureaucrats, I’m talking about the people. I feel this caribou issue is more about politics than legal questions. I’m just curious. Would the Minister explain to me: is this a caribou summit? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, just to reaffirm that this issue is first and foremost about the caribou and protecting the caribou to give them some help in their time of need to regenerate and, hopefully, have their numbers grow as we come through with a larger harvest management plan. I’m not quite sure what the Member is talking about in terms of is this a summit. We’re working to resolve the immediate short-term issue related to the no-hunting zone and working with the Yellowknives to access enough animals for their communities, similar to the arrangement we have with the Tlicho. At the same time, we are working with the Wekeezhii process, which will bring together a whole host of interveners, as well as the aboriginal governments, will flow over into the Akaitcho and the Northwest Territories Metis. As well, in addition to that, we are working with the co-management boards and their executive directors, at present, and chairs to look at pulling them together in the not-too-distant future to look at the very many overlap issues that are before us with all the herds that we currently manage in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I called several weeks ago that we organize in such a way that we deal with the politics of this type of issue and both the outcry and the fall-out that could happen. So, Mr. Speaker, I’m just trying to get clarity on what type of meeting the Minister is having. Like, what type of format, what are the objectives of this meeting, and what is the goal of this particular meeting? Unlike what I had suggested, a caribou summit to discuss the issue to work together. Thank you.
The summit we had in Inuvik about three years ago now was about a half a million dollars, and it brought people in for the first time from around the North to discuss caribou. Things have progressed considerably since then in terms of the planning, what’s happening to the caribou herds, the need to work very specifically on a herd-by-herd basis with all the boards to develop harvest management plans. I’ve just laid out for the Member basically three tracks that we’re dealing with with the short term, the mid-term and then the longer term to sort out the harvest management plan for the Bathurst herd. Those processes are all currently underway. Thank you
Mr. Speaker, every time I mention “summit” the Minister seems to think that I’m talking about planes and planes and trains and buses of people. Mr. Speaker, I continually point to the fact that I’m asking about a small group of people. I often wonder why it’s so difficult on the other side of the House to say that was a good idea, maybe we should do that. So how much different is my call to rally a few people, the affected chiefs only? Again, keep the bureaucracy at home. How much different is this call for a small meeting than the one being described by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources? And I’m prepared to accept his apology if it’s the same thing.
The Member says tomato, I say tomato. We’re on it, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for recognizing that we’re on it. If he would like me to say tomato instead of tomato, I’d be happy to say that, but the point is, we’re going to the same place and the Member’s suggestion is an excellent one: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
