Fisheries committee  Historically, we have to keep the government of the day accountable for their actions and how they address first nations issues, from where I come from. One of the gentlemen here had asked a question, but since he's from another region, I can't speak for anybody else other than my own community, or for where I come from.

Fisheries committee  What I said earlier was that we have about 100 houses. The population is about 300.

Fisheries committee  Yes, we have lots of young people. We don't have anything going for them right now, but I know that this fishery is the backbone we have. That's all we have to defend ourselves, in many ways. You add up the cost of gasoline, hydro, and everything at the end of the day, and you don't have anything to take home.

Fisheries committee  As I said, we're a very small community, and our funding is not that high. It's not that great either. We have local jobs that are available for people who have held onto them ever since the funding started in our community. Some of them are hereditary jobs. We don't have any long-term plans other than what my friend Kevin here was talking about.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  There are about 28, but we have these small quotas that we buy from each other, A lot of them are 10,000-pound quotas. A lot of us hold three or four for one young person and one family. But our young people can't get into the fishing industry because of the situation. Everything has gone up.

Fisheries committee  As far as we're talking about here, there is no safe harbour where we come from. We're in a very critical stage here. Also, in 2005, there were high waters here in Lake Winnipeg that totally took our wharves away and took our harbours away.

Fisheries committee  Yes, we reside in Jackhead Reserve.

Fisheries committee  That we built ourselves, yes. The other thing I wanted to mention is that this is my second time coming to give a presentation to the standing committee. The first one I went to was in Grand Rapids. I think that was in 1995 or 1996, and now I'm at this one here today. In Grand Rapids, it had to do with the FFMC again, of course, but nothing came of that.

Fisheries committee  I'm Henry Traverse, from Jackhead Reserve. We gave it back its original name of Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation. In English, it's Jackhead Reserve.

Fisheries committee  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. When I came here this morning, I didn't know if the committee wanted me to bring something on paper to present my case. My reservation, Jackhead Reserve, is a fishing community. The reason I came here is for identification purposes. We've been living on this lake we're sitting beside this morning for centuries.