Merci, Monsieur le président.
I'll continue in the same vein.
Mr. Norlock, I fully understand where you're coming from with this bill. Indeed Canada, at least in its European reality, was built on beaver trapping. If not for beaver trapping, the country may never have existed as we know it. So I fully understand why we need to have a day to celebrate that.
But the second step is that we trapped the beavers so much that they almost disappeared. The third step is that now there are so few trappers in some regions, at least in my province, that we have too many beavers and dams. So I understand why you are proposing that, and I agree, but I would like to ask why the second part of this story has not been mentioned anywhere in your bill, and that is that we need hunting, fishing, and trapping that are sustainable. We have learned to do that, but we have a lot more to learn, and the people involved in these activities may be a great help as part of the solution. In the past we have not been careful enough and we have been part of the problem. In my province, for example, and in other places in North America—
There was a bird, not at all a timid one, that people liked to eat—the passenger pigeon. Because of the use of poles, the passenger pigeon was exterminated. It no longer exists. The bison almost disappeared too. That is part of our history.
That is why I would have liked a mention somewhere in the bill that the day would be used to promote…
sustainable trapping, hunting and fishing.