Fisheries Committee on April 7th, 2014

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

In your opinion, they cannot.

[Marvin Hildebrand]

They did not and they cannot.

Another of our concerns is that whereas Canada has put forward the idea of.... We put this forward to the European Union both before the panel ever started, as part of our advocacy efforts prior to 2009 to resolve this issue. Between the ban coming into place even after 2009, we promoted with the European Union the idea of a certification and labelling regime where—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Will they look at that?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

There's been no real uptake on that. At that time, we also put it forward as part of our panel submission and we said this is a less trade-restricting alternative that really needs to be looked at.

They're dealing with what they perceive to be a problem, or they're dealing with this issue with an outright ban. What we said is that we should work together and develop a certification and labelling regime that can be properly enforced that allows legitimate trade to flow. If properly designed and implemented, it would work well for our industry because it would allow all aspects—the Inuit hunt and the non-Inuit hunt—in other parts of eastern Canada, to benefit from access to the European Union market.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. MacAulay, your time is up, sir.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I only—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

You got 10 minutes there, sir.

Mr. Leef.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Just touching on a question that Mr. Chisholm asked in terms of the government's approach to this and the seriousness of it, is it common for a minister to appear before a WTO hearing like this?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

To my knowledge, it's not common. The minister, as I said, led the delegation. She made a brief opening statement and then our lead counsel on this case, who happens to be joining me at the table today, provided a detailed oral submission to the appellate body, which was accompanied by an even lengthier written submission to the appellate body last month.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

We're appealing on logic and facts, I would say. But how helpful is it—we weren't there so that's kind of why the committee is interesting in hearing—to have a minister with traditional and cultural roots and a clear understanding, both from practical experience...? I mean, our minister has hands-on, real-life experience there. She can participate in this discussion with the WTO. How helpful is that?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

The appellate body is going to look, as you said, at the facts of the case. We trust that they will make a wise judgment. I think that we were very well represented by the head of our delegation and by all the members of our delegation last month. Certainly the minister has some very definite familiarity with this issue, which was likely brought to bear. I wasn't there as part of the delegation myself, but I think it was brought to bear in the proceedings that went on.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

The EU has been holding the position that Greenland has taken advantage of the exemptions and that basically it's Canada's fault for not taking advantage of the exemptions that are being offered them.

If I understand it correctly, they're not measuring.... As you've said, they're measuring the group that's engaged in the harvest, not the methods they're using. Canada's hunt is sustainable, it's legal, and it's ethical, and we've deployed a number of strategies over our seal hunt to make it a humane hunt.

How does Greenland compare in terms of that hunt and how humane—for lack of a better word, I guess—is Greenland's hunt compared to Canada's? Is the EU conscious of that or are they asking Greenland to support documents of the humane way in which seals are harvested in Greenland in comparison to Canada...?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

For part of that answer, I'll defer to my colleague, but my understanding is that they are not looking at the humaneness at all, because all of the Greenland seal hunt/harvest is coming in under an exemption that is based 100% on the ethnicity or the ancestry of the hunters, so they don't have to demonstrate anything else to qualify under that exemption.

The problem for Canada, or one of the problems, is that this exemption has never been operationalized in the case of Canada. Both de facto and in other ways, it is not available to us, but it's also not available to us because of the nature of our industry, the supply chain, and the distribution and processing chain, and the fact that the Inuit hunt in Canada is a small proportion of the overall hunt historically.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

It's perplexing, then, though, that there would be an argument that on moral grounds they're restricting this hunt, but they don't particularly care how the hunt is undertaken and whether it's humane or not humane. They don't care how people kill the seals as long as those people belong to a class of persons. In that sense alone, it's a discriminatory vein the EU is taking by saying that they appreciate the culture and value and their understanding of that, but it's very perplexing for them to say, “We're standing on a moral ground here, but we don't actually care how these seals are killed.”

[Marvin Hildebrand]

It's certainly problematic, and it's also problematic because.... Well, the reality is that as Greenland avails themselves of this exemption, it's not in any way volume limited either, so—and we've argued this before the panel and the appellate body—essentially the effect of the ban has been to divert trade. It has diverted it away from Canada to places like Greenland, which somehow are able to qualify under an exemption that is not, in a de facto sense and maybe in other senses, available to Canada.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

I'm sure the EU is holding their cards close to their chest right now and they probably don't want to deal in hypotheticals at all, but has there been any indication or signalling of what the EU would do should the WTO come back and rule in Canada's favour on this issue?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

No. You're right. The parties will always hold their cards close to their chests as long as the proceedings are under way. We would do the same thing.

Frankly, the whole question of the implementation of the appellate body report or decision is something that we'll certainly turn our minds to as soon as we see what that report looks like. But at this time, we wouldn't have any basis on which to second-guess what the EU's strategy or intentions might be.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

The ITK position is well known on this, but I have heard that in some positions on the European side, in the political world, they feel that while the ITK is suggesting that it's hurting the market, it's not the general sense of hunters in the communities themselves. I would disagree with that, from being in the Arctic, spending time in the Arctic, and talking directly with them.

I think it's great that they're showing solidarity with our eastern sealers. It's important. But has the WTO heard from other groups beyond the ITK position on this? Are they hearing from individual sealers who represent small community hunts?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

There certainly is a mechanism for interested third parties, not only WTO members but others, as you suggested, to make submissions. There was a submission in the case from Canadian industry but not from an Inuit group.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

We have spent a lot of time today talking about the Inuit hunt in Canada, but there is a huge eastern market and a great number of Canadians outside of the traditional hunt, as it were, from an Inuit cultural perspective.

This ban on the hunt affects the downstream processing aspect as well, so it's not just the hunt itself but all the downstream end of it. Were the numbers that you talked about—in 2006 the $18 million, and less than half a million dollars in 2013—reflective of the entire market or just the hunt itself?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

Those are Canadian export figures. I don't have any information on Canada's domestic market for such products. Those numbers were strictly related to the exports.

But certainly you're right. Our understanding is that the supply chain and the processing and distribution and other aspects of the commercial pipeline have been effectively decimated by this ban, and that to get it back up and running at the level it was at would require a certain amount of investment and reactivation and renewed interest. It's an open question as to exactly what might inspire that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

We'll now move to a five-minute round. We'll start off with Mr. Cleary.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. This is going to be, as the chair just pointed out, five minutes, so it's the speed round.

Ryan just asked some interesting questions about numbers. I also want to follow on some questions that Mr. Chisholm asked.

You mentioned that 2006 figure of $18 million for Canadian exports. What is the overall figure for domestic and export sales? That's one question.

As well, is that $18-million Canadian export figure for exports to the EU, or is it to world markets?

[Marvin Hildebrand]

That's to the world.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

So it is $18 million to world markets. Now, what is the domestic figure to put alongside that $18-million export figure?