Environment committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today about things that are really dear to my heart. I grew up on a farm in central Alberta. I've hunted and fished since I was big enough to carry a BB gun and harass the sparrows and starlings in the yard. For the past 30 years

Environment committee  Okay, I'm sorry. The rest of my presentation is pretty much statistics. If you have the notes, we can look at them. I would say, if I don't have time to go over them all with you, we really do look at hunting and fishing as the economic engines in the Northwest Territories. At t

Environment committee  Absolutely. I'll try to do that.

Environment committee  I believe it's important to hear from the common man in Canada, from the hunter and the fisherman, and I know you are, Mr. Sopuck, and a couple of the other members. I think as we become more and more urbanized we get a disconnect. I believe that almost every young biologist wh

Environment committee  Where I operate as an outfitter in the Mackenzie Mountains, the Northwest Territories government really doesn't have much budget for studies. It's a very remote region so there's very little pressure on the wildlife, but they really do rely on us as their eyes and ears on the gro

Environment committee  We've talked about this at HAAP. I think it's a good idea. It's a little different situation in Canada because we would probably—unless it was done very carefully—hurt the retail sector in Canada. It's very competitive. It's hard to compete with the American retailers as it is.

Environment committee  Yes. Africa has a little bit different social environment, economic environment from Canada. But when you take away the value of wildlife to the people who live on the land, especially in a place like rural Canada where animals raid crops and stuff, if there is no value in that w

Environment committee  No, absolutely not. In the Northwest Territories, you're right; our association, AMMO, has had a scholarship program. We have actually helped send many of those people to school, encouraging them to get involved. I really believe that the system in the Northwest Territories, brin

Environment committee  But still, they learn. Once they get in these programs and they see that they have a career, and it's a career that they have an interest in, they do very well.

Environment committee  I hosted the first camp last year at my camp. It was a northern youth leadership conference for teenage girls. Yes, we have definitely supported that and will continue to. We're doing another camp this year at the end of June before our hunters arrive.

Environment committee  Absolutely. I wish I could go and talk to every high school in Canada, or every junior high, or every elementary. I do volunteer in schools at home where I am allowed to.

Environment committee  Right.

Environment committee  It's in my stats that the caribou numbers are in serious decline. It's not an area that I personally am familiar with. I outfit in the mountains on the west side of the river, so I'm not familiar with the barrens, other than I know what's going on. The caribou are in serious decl

Environment committee  It's a sad tale. I don't know if anybody today fully understands why the caribou are in such serious decline, but they are, definitely.

Environment committee  It's interesting, because NWT caribou biologists and traditional knowledge both tell us that a massive, massive fluctuation in caribou numbers is the norm. They have seen this before. The traditional knowledge of the aboriginals tells of years where there were no caribou, no cari