Fisheries committee  The export market right now is much larger than the domestic market. We really haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the domestic market over the past number of years. We've started to focus on it now as a possible opportunity. We've been led to that opportunity by fishermen who say, “Listen, if I'm selling fish that's going to Ontario or Europe, why can't we sell it in Yellowknife?”

Fisheries committee  I'm not really sure there's much I can add to the discussion on invasive species. Right now we hope that Great Slave Lake will not be dealing with invasive species in the near or distant future. As long as we maintain...and work with the federal government to put in place those means to control the entry of invasive species, I think we'll do well.

Fisheries committee  We would see the Department of Fisheries and Oceans maintaining their presence in terms of science and monitoring. They've played a key role in the history of the Northwest Territories in terms of our fisheries, and we hope they will continue to do so.

Fisheries committee  It all comes down to capacity and what you're faced with. Mr. Chisholm spoke before about climate change and its impacts on fisheries. The big threat to our fishery is invasive species. We're seeing new species coming into the lake now. We're seeing new species coming into our rivers.

Fisheries committee  We are aware of it as a government, through our Department of Environment and Natural Resources. They would be overseeing those regulations.

Fisheries committee  My department, the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, isn't actually involved with that. That's vested with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. As with species at risk, we're working very closely with the Government of Canada, and it is a high priority.

Fisheries committee  The representative body for the commercial fishers up here in the Northwest Territories is the Northwest Territories Fishermen's Federation. They are based out of Hay River. DFO has offices in Hay River as well as Yellowknife. There are a number of co-management boards as well in terms of the fisheries across the NWT, where the federal government and us are both involved.

Fisheries committee  They all deal with first nations.

Fisheries committee  We looked at the aquaculture industry a couple of years ago with a variety of stakeholders, and there was just no appeal to it. There was just no appetite for getting into that industry at all. The preference was to stay with the open-water fishery.