Environment Committee on April 23rd, 2015

[Robert Cahill]

It's very much a case of trends. When I was involved with my family business in the 1980s, we were a small family business in Peterborough selling $1 million worth of fur garments. The value today is less than 10% of that. It has changed significantly. We've also seen the economic recession that we went into in the 1990s in the western world. We went through social changes. People are investing more money in electronics and travel today than they did in the past. I think what we see in a lot of different places is a changing emphasis on the use of your disposable income. Yet we also see, if you pick up a fashion magazine today, and certainly from the fall through the winter, virtually every big fashion brand in the world using fur. I've been invited by some of the big brands to visit them in a few weeks. I'll be in France and Italy, visiting Louis Vuitton, and Gucci, and Chanel, and Fendi, and Prada. These companies are all using it, so it's not just Canada Goose. When you start looking at the lines they create, it's a whole range of things. It's really a fashion trend in different cycles in different parts of the world at different times.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you for that.

I want to give Mr. Howie a chance to respond, but before I do, I want to ask Mr. Gibb or Mr. Thompson about Mr. Howie's issue of tags and warning signs, particularly in urban areas or areas where people walk and occupy the same spaces as traps.

What's unreasonable about that?

[Jim Gibb]

I will give you part of an answer here, anyway. Because there are people who are opposed to what you do, if you put up a sign saying that you're trapping someplace, it invites a lot of problems.

I have two dogs of my own, so I'm a dog lover, but the first thing that happens when someone gets out in a rural area is that they unleash the dog and let him run wild.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes.

[Jim Gibb]

That causes a lot of problems, because there are other users out on the land, hunting, fishing, trapping. When a dog gets caught in a trap.... Society has said to the trappers that it wants the traps to be lethal; it doesn't want the animal to suffer. I can honestly tell you that the dogs don't really suffer too much when they get caught in the trap. But that's unfortunate.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes.

What about the tag business?

[Jim Gibb]

I can speak very definitely about the tagging business in Ontario. I have three registered traplines that I trap on in Ontario. It takes about five minutes if you contact a conservation officer to know exactly who traps there. So that's not an issue.

Where we run into a lot of problems is when people have problems with nuisance or problem wildlife, and they take matters into their own hands. They're allowed to buy a live trap at the feed store on the corner, or they get trap from somebody else because there are traps around, and they set it indiscriminately. They don't know what to do with the animal when they catch it, and then it makes the front page of The Hamilton Spectator or the Toronto Star.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Okay, well, let's give Mr. Howie a chance to respond about Mr. Gibb and—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Megan Leslie]

There isn't actually time for him to respond.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Oh my goodness.

Well, I'll invite Mr. Howie to respond in the event that Mr. Sopuck asks him another question.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Megan Leslie]

Thanks, Mr. McKay.

We will go to Mr. Bevington now.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you.

Trappers are environmentalists; they are dealing with environment in many cases. Are there any specific federal programs to enhance the work that they do to protect the environment? When it comes to the kinds of things that we've been talking about, diseased animals or changes in the conditions of the animals, is there a reporting system that rewards trappers for providing that information?

[Gregory Thompson]

If I may, sir, Nancy provided an excellent summary of the monitoring programs associated with fur bearer health and status in which the fur trappers working with jurisdictions—and these are provincial and territorial jurisdictions that I'm referring to—do report. Their harvests are monitored, and they do report on the health of the populations.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

But is there any remuneration for the trappers for doing this?

[Jim Gibb]

I know that specifically in the Northwest Territories, there's money provided to trappers for turning in carcasses of wolverines and wolves for study. They're doing population studies and so on, especially with the problems they're having with the caribou populations in NWT. I know there's an incentive for the trappers to turn in carcasses so that the biologists can study them.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Yes. I'm looking at this picture of the trapper as an environmental tool of the government, and of all of us, because I truly believe that's the case for people who are actively engaged in this, especially in wilderness areas where there is not much contact other than through them.

But what we seem to be running into here is the difference between trapping and.... I live in and represent a region of 1.2 million square kilometres with 40,000 people in it. It's real wilderness. People trap there and don't have a problem with somebody running into their traps. They may have a problem with other animals running into the traps, but not with people. When I see the problems that are created in urban areas, I see pretty clearly that this is where this conflict is developing. On the other side of it, I'd say right now that the fastest-growing and largest outdoor activity that is very profitable is birdwatching. Birdwatching is the one thing that is really growing throughout the world.

How do we continue to maintain trapping and continue to grow these other uses of wilderness, which are extremely valuable? That's the core issue here, I think, that we're talking about. How do we convince the rest of the world that we're a wilderness paradise that has opportunities to see wildlife, to see birds, and to be in the wilderness, and convince them that the trapping aspect of what goes on in Canada is such a valuable part of that? I guess that's where we're talking about the difference between billion-dollar industries and hundred-million-dollar industries. We need to have that balance.

Is this a subject of conversation? Are there efforts put into this wildlife and wilderness use balance, in your experience? I'd throw that open for anyone to talk about.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Megan Leslie]

I see that Mr. Dakins would like to jump in.

[Dion Dakins]

Thank you very much.

I think the important thing here is that we're coming into the 150th anniversary of this great nation. As was mentioned earlier, the fur trade and hunting, trapping, and fishing have been the backbones of this country for a very long time. There needs to be a requirement for further education and more science and evaluation about the role that trappers, hunters, and fishers play in maintaining an ecosystem balance.

Here in Newfoundland we have seal-watching tours as much as we have a sustained seal industry. Many of the programs around evaluating the health of populations are voluntary in nature. There is a program whereby hunters go out and collect samples for Department of Fisheries and Oceans to evaluate the health of the population of seals. There's also a program here in Newfoundland and Labrador whereby jawbones of the moose hunted in Gros Morne National Park are turned in. There is a substantial wealth of information within the jurisdictions.

I think a more substantial role could be played by the Government of Canada around our coming birthday to really educate the population on the intricate role and balance of hunters, trappers, and fishers in the local environments.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Megan Leslie]

Thank you, Mr. Dakins.

[Michael Howie]

I'd like to offer something quickly on that.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Megan Leslie]

Mr. Howie, we're out of time. I apologize. Perhaps there will be a moment in another round of questioning.

I forgot to announce that we're now into five-minute rounds of questioning. That's why that one got cut a little shorter than the last round. My apologies.

Mr. Sopuck, you have five minutes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thanks.

One thing I will never do is apologize for protecting and defending rural communities, rural culture, the outdoor way of life, sustainable use, and the sustainable use communities that I am so proud to represent. In fact, that's one of the reasons I became an MP.

Contrary to Mr. McKay almost implying that we don't want debate, I welcome this debate. We are actually winning in terms of our government's support for the sustainable use way of life. I have the honour of being chair of the Conservative hunting and angling caucus, and there are dozens of Conservative members of Parliament who are as dedicated as I am and as Mr. Calkins and others are to protecting and defending hunting, trapping, and the sustainable use way of life. My only comment would be, bring it on.

Mr. Howie brought up the issue of the muskrat hat. I was very proud to be one of the leaders in our caucus to preserve that tradition by the RCMP. It may have seemed like a small issue, but it really wasn't. The symbolism was extremely important. I'd like to quote here an MLA from Mr. Bevington's riding, Norman Yakeleya, who is a Sahtu MLA. He applauded our government for standing up in protecting the RCMP. I'd like to read what he said: “Like Mr. Sopuck, I represent a remote rural part of Canada, and many of my constituents trap. We cannot let animal rights activists sweep this sustainable renewable industry under the rug. The Muskrat hat” is very symbolic to the RCMP.

I'd like Mr. Cahill, perhaps, or Mr. Thompson, to comment on why that issue resonated so strongly throughout the country and, indeed, internationally.

[Gregory Thompson]

Yes, thank you.

The day the debate was taking place with respect to muskrat hats, and the announcement had been made with respect to what the RCMP was proposing, I happened to be in a farm kitchen in Western Quebec, knocking on doors, looking for permission to hunt Canada geese in the cornfields. I was in a number of households that day. Every farmer I talked to was absolutely incensed at what was going on. The reason was that the larger community involved in the use and management of both domestic and wild animals in this country saw the symbols and signals here to be very negative and very concerning on something as straightforward as an iconic piece of headgear of Canada's national police force.

This resonated not just with the fur sector, but also with the entire agricultural and hunting sector right across this country. It was a very important decision that the government took to roll back the proposed approach.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thanks.

Yes, that took 48 hours, and I think that sends a very strong signal out to the sustainable-use community about our government's stand on behalf of the sustainable-use community.

I'm certain my time is coming close to an end, but I would be remiss if I didn't put on the record a couple of quotes by two NDP members of Parliament.

On October 27, 2014, Jean Crowder, the New Democrat MP for Nanaimo—Cowichan said she supported legislation in which animals would be considered as people and not just property. Françoise Boivin, New Democratic MP for Gatineau, Quebec, the same day, made the point that animals should be treated with “the same protection that we afford to children and people with mental or physical disabilities.”

To me this opens the door to an animal rights agenda if they ever had their way.

Ms. Daigneault, can you perhaps comment on these two comments that are in Hansard?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Megan Leslie]

I'll just let you know you have about a minute and a half.