I'm just thinking about this forum. Most of what you're dealing with is federal jurisdiction. Most of the concerns, not all of the concerns but a lot of the concerns, we have in Newfoundland are under provincial jurisdiction. I'm not sure if this forum is the actual place to discuss them or not but I'll discuss them anyway. Most of the jurisdiction we have in respect to hunting and trapping is provincial.
In Newfoundland what we have now is that we have had our trapping seasons changed this year for the first time. Prior to this year our trapping season began in October, around about the 20th. This year it was November 1. As a result people, on the island part of the province basically weren't able to capture any fur because of the winter that we have in November. Most of the people on the island part of the province trap and catch most of their foxes, mink, and coyotes in October. When the season starts in November and basically extends into March, we have maybe a couple of weeks in November. After that the winter sets in and we have an exorbitant amount of snow plus the frost, so the ability to catch foxes and coyotes is very limited. This is the first year that we have had this season for the province and we've had this season for the province of Labrador and the island of Newfoundland. What we are asking is that we basically have a couple of seasons or two different dates, one for the island and one for Labrador.
On the island part of the province we think, and maybe rightly so we're not sure, that most of the trapping that we do on the Labrador part of this province is in pine marten. The pine marten is endangered on the island and we do not trap them. We don't have very many here, but in Labrador they do.
One of the other things we've noticed is that we've had a decrease in moose hunting licences on the island part of our province. But it has only been residents who have received this decrease. Outfitters in the province have not received this decrease. They basically have the same licences that they have had, or the same quota they've had, for a number of years. This year there has been a decrease in the moose hunting population on the island part of the province but outfitters in our province have not seen a decrease. So what we are saying.... I know they have a percentage. The outfitters in our province have a percentage of the moose hunting licences in the areas as designated. However, what we would like to see is that if you're going to decrease the number for local hunters then you decrease the hunting for everybody, not only for the local hunters.
I know, basically, that we don't necessarily talk about fishing in respect to hunting and trapping, but I'm going to make a couple of comments here. In Newfoundland I represent people, the NLWF represents people, who hunt and fish for food. In Newfoundland what we have is a five-week season basically for our food fishery, and that food fishery with respect to fishing and cod fishing is five fish per day or 15 fish per boat.
The season runs about five weeks. We are having major problems with that. If you leave my hometown, and you travel for an hour and a half, and you go hunting and fishing, and go jigging for cod, you have to come back with five fish only. If you take in more than five fish that's against the law in Newfoundland. That's a federal jurisdiction.
We also have concerns with respect to.... We would like to see fishing for cod increased where we can capture so many per day and have that daily fishery. In the past what we used to do is that a number of us would go out and catch fish. We would give this to the older people in the community who could not fish. We can't do that today. We're not allowed. It's impossible to do that.
In summary we have had our moose licences decreased in our areas in the province. We've had our season changed with respect to trapping in our province. The food fishery that we have in the jurisdiction, and we know that it's run by the federal government, is extremely limited. I would like to say—and I know this is national—that some of the people I represent, the people that we represent, do this for food. We don't do this for anything else. When we go hunting moose, we don't hunt antlers. People don't want antlers in our province. We don't. We hunt food. It's the same with fishing.
With respect to salmon fishing...I know it's going off on another topic. We have four fish per day in our licence for salmon fishing. We take this as food. That's it, as food. It's not for pictures, or paintings, or anything else. When you can catch a salmon, you catch it. It becomes yours. It's not anybody else's. It's not pictures. It's not to catch it and land it, and see how big it is. We catch it and we eat it. It's simple. We have a whack of different interest groups in the province that see this as a business. There can be a business attached to it, I suppose, but if you're going to attach a business component to this then why do you have to have your citizens of your province, the people that I represent, told that this is what you have to do, more or less? If you don't do this, then basically you are a criminal.