Fisheries committee  I'll speak to the general piece, and then if Nathan has any comments, he can certainly add to my response. Part of it is that the productivity in northern lakes is not what you would see in southern jurisdictions. If you have been here, you know that the lakes are not all that productive, in comparison.

Fisheries committee  Thank you. We look forward to your coming up here and spending a couple of days on the lakes and seeing for yourself what kind of experience you can have.

Fisheries committee  I can speak to that. The agreement basically gives a first nation the ability to trade amongst first nation members. They cannot sell that for commercial gain in a public market or separately for what would normally be considered trade amongst themselves for sharing. So they do recognize that and the agreements do recognize that.

Fisheries committee  That's correct.

Fisheries committee  That's right.

Fisheries committee  Yes, that's correct.

Fisheries committee  Our legal obligation is the freshwater fishery. There have certainly been discussions about the offshore fishery, particularly off the Beaufort. There's no road access to that, so largely the activity right now comes from the delta, from Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, and Aklavik, and from some of the communities of Inuvialuit and Gwich'in that fish there.

Fisheries committee  It was a learning curve for all of us when the councils and boards fell into place and as more came along with each successive individual first nation final agreement. You're moving from generally a fish scientist or fish biology focus to now considering a lot of human dimension issues, for lack of a better term, or social scientist type of issues.

Fisheries committee  Okay. The agreements basically lay out the rights of a first nation. This particular comprehensive claim created boards and councils so they could have greater involvement in the overall management of fisheries. When we're dealing with first nations, their rights are identified in the treaties but the boards and councils are constructed to inform management and to direct, to some degree, management activities.

Fisheries committee  We've certainly added to that such things as a family fishing weekend, where basically there's no need for a fishing licence per se. You have conservation officers or fisheries officers who come out and actually help kids fish. That has been very popular. It's actually brought together some of the enforcement and monitoring folks in a bit more positive sense.

Fisheries committee  It's an interesting question, because I think under our new.... I always say it's new because I was part of the negotiating crew, but it's different. The first and foremost interest for the majority of Yukon is to make sure that the fish stocks are healthy. I think that's universal.

Fisheries committee  In a nutshell, most of the access points and harbours are not managed by DFO. They are put in place either by the Yukon government or by private commercial operations.

Fisheries committee  That was the first report in 20 years. We don't have a schedule for additional status reports. Our fishery section is a very small group, but we do identify our projects, and through the public process, we identify and prioritize the activities we will be working on for the year.

Fisheries committee  Yes. That's correct.

Fisheries committee  We have a draft in there. We always have to be concerned. It's always a little bit of a challenge for us when we provide comments that we don't bypass the opportunity for the board. The board is actually responsible for making comments on legislation. It's actually a “shall” clause in the final agreement.