Fisheries Committee on Nov. 6th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We're at five minutes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I might as well tell it like it is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

How honest of you.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Do I have time for a quick question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Make it a very quick question.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

There's one other aspect, and that is the recreational aspect, of course. I want to ask you a question. I just want to get your thoughts on the coexistence, as it were, between what you do and what people in the recreational seal fishery do—or seal hunt, rather.

[Wilf Aylward]

That's a difficult one, because—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

[Wilf Aylward]

No, I'm not on the spot. I don't mind. I'll deal with that quite well.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Yes, because I noticed you were honest with John. I figured you would. That's why I'm picking on you.

[Wilf Aylward]

I think the fishermen should get the best first opportunity at the harvest, but I don't think the recreational should be eliminated altogether. They should be in a different category from the full-time fisherman. There should probably be a certain amount for recreation, separate from the commercial. That's the way I would see it. That would probably eliminate a lot of the overruns that we're getting too. If you have probably 5,000 or 8,000 seals for an area for recreation—

I think some of those recreational sealers that we're talking about have been sealing just as long as me or Rene or anybody else. But they are recreational. They have other jobs, which is why they're called recreational hunters. But if you look on their licence, they're full-time sealers, they're certified sealers, the same as anybody else.

So they shouldn't be eliminated, but they should be put in another category. If they're making a living from the sea, it's a seal fishery and a seal hunt.

Now, there's something, too. That's another thing, Scott. Some say “seal fishery” and some say “seal hunt”.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Maybe if we said “seal fishery”, we'd get EI.

[Wilf Aylward]

Yes, maybe we would.

So that's my opinion on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

Monsieur Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning. First of all, I want to get a clarification from Mr. Genge. I may have misunderstood but I heard you say that, in the Magdalen islands—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Can we just wait a second while we try to get our translation working?

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

As far as I know, Mr. Genge, what you said is not true. You said that the vast majority of hunters in the islands hunt with rifles.

Is that what you said?

[Rene Genge]

No, I did not say most people in the Magdalen Islands use rifles. In the Magdalen Islands, most people use a hakapik.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

This corrects the facts. I'm in full agreement with you.

I'd like to understand two things. When you talk about big boats and small boats, how do you make the difference? What are the problems caused by the bigger boats? I understand that a big boat can go further but what kind of problems are created by the use of bigger boats, in comparison to smaller boats?

Mr. Joncas.

[Jean Richard Joncas]

There are no problems caused by the use of big boats because, in most zones, except on the Quebec North Shore, quotas are assigned to each category of boats. Big boats are those that are more than 35 feet in length. Small boats are those that are shorter than 35 feet.

The problem is that someone can hunt on a big boat and, after having reached his quota on that big boat, continue hunting on a smaller boat. That's what may cause problems.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Kearley, you mentioned in your statement that we should start a very aggressive and a strong campaign in Europe based on facts but delivered with emotion.

I understand that, over the past 30 years, Brigitte Bardot has caused lots of damages to the sealing industry. She's been very successful, unfortunately.

How do you think an aggressive campaign of information could be delivered with emotion? What do you mean exactly? What type of campaign should be started in Europe and who should start it?

[John Kearley]

Down through the years, too many times we've gone with facts and numbers, and as I said, these people are not interested in facts; it's an emotional issue. It's the biggest fundraising for these protest groups. They have used and still are using the pictures of the whitecoats being killed, with the tears running out of their eyes. Of course, we haven't hunted whitecoat since 1982. That was stopped because of the protest groups. It had nothing to do with the market for whitecoats, or anything else; it was a perception thing.

I think we should be more aggressive. People are being lied to; the facts distributed by the protest groups are not the actual facts. I think the Canadian government should be more in the forefront in dealing with these protest groups.

For instance, in the United States we've had the Marine Mammal Protection Act now for a number of years, which put a ban on the importation of seal products into the United States; yet the Canadian government has done little if anything over the years to work on this issue. There's a huge market of 300 million people on our doorstep, and we are unable to access that market.

Also, there are the problems of logistics that it creates. As a company, we have lost product that was accidently trans-shipped through the United States and seized by U.S. Customs. We have to be very careful when we're shipping product now, so that the shipping line or whatever does not transship to the United States.

For instance, the main hub of all courier companies in North America is most likely in the United States. When we ship samples of our product to our parent, we have to disguise the description of what it is, because it may be seized by U.S. Customs. We have to disguise what we are shipping. Just recently I shipped samples of our seal oil for analysis and I termed it marine oil so that people looking at the document would not know whether it was lube oil or whatever. You have to do these things. It's unfortunate that we're selling a legal product, yet have to disguise it as something else.

We haven't presented the “good side” stories of the Canadian seal harvest; for instance, about seal oil. We haven't put out to the public the benefits to cardiovascular health and cholesterol levels, and things like this. You can use facts until the cows come home, as they say, but let's start telling the good side stories of the seal harvest, and not go just with facts, but go with the emotion that these people work on as well.

It's a very emotional issue for me. I've been involved with the sealing industry in Newfoundland now for almost 30 years and I'm very proud of what I do, very proud of my company, and very proud of the sealers who participate in this harvest. It's an emotional issue for me and emotional for people like Rene and Wilf. Rene was personally attacked last year. It's time that as a government we start to stand up for the citizens of Canada.

If you talk to sealers and ask them what this harvest means to them, they go back to the days of their father, when they were children and the seal hunt taking place in the spring of the year meant a lot to these people in terms of a livelihood. In, as we say, the long, cold, hungry month of March, when supplies were running low, all of a sudden there was an opportunity to put extra dollars in their pockets and meat on their tables. It's an emotional issue and it should be treated as such.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Kearley.

Mr. Manning.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our guests for appearing here today.

As usual with the fishery in this province, there are a lot issues and very little time to try to hammer out some of those issues. But in listening to the presentations this morning, I sense a major amount of frustration with a lot of the rules and regulations we have in place and I also sense a deep feeling that we have a lot of things to straighten up in our own backyard before we try to straighten up what's over in Europe's backyard, the European community.

I have many questions, and one of them has to do with the race mentality and having a fair share to go around in relation to the quota itself. Maybe, John, you can touch on your numbers. The sealing numbers are well up with regard to population. Their quota has increased somewhat over the past year, over 300,000 pelts.

Can we maintain a larger hunt? And with regard to race mentality, is an IQ system the way to go with it? A lot of our fisheries are now IQ, and it's probably working very well in a lot of places. I know in my own area down in southern Avalon with regard to crab and those things, that works very well. Perhaps you and maybe someone else can touch on the sealing aspect. I'm just trying to find out how you address that race mentality. It seems to be a problem with the opening and the closing, and so on.

[John Kearley]

With the race mentality, when we're into a competitive fishery, as the seal harvest is, it will exist no matter what we do. It would be almost impossible to totally remove it. The veterinarians we met in Halifax last year talked about the use of the hakapik. One thing was to palpate the skull to ensure that the animal was rendered what they termed irrevocably unconscious.

If you go into an abattoir where they slaughter cows, these animals are not dead when they are rendered irrevocably unconscious with the use of a bolt. By palpating the skull, you would then ensure that the brain is destroyed. To do this and then bleed out the animal would benefit our side of the industry as far as quality is concerned. An important factor in killing an animal is the bleeding. Seals that are not bled properly develop what we call ice burn; some of the older sealers refer to it as blood burn.

Once the animal is dead and the heart has stopped beating, the blood collects in the lower parts, and this reacts negatively with the pelt. For instance, a seal that is ice burned has a pelt like tissue paper. This happens within minutes on certain days, depending on the sun and things like that. Bleeding out the animal certainly will help to stop this problem from developing. It will also slow down the harvest. Sealers would not be able to just go around and kill, kill, kill. They would have to bleed out the animals as they go. So that may slow it down somewhat.

With regard to boat quotas, as I said in my presentation, there are many sealers and boats. There are 14,000 licences and hundreds of vessels out there every spring. If you start distributing it, it may become uneconomical. If the skipper has to gear up for 150 pelts, it's hardly worth his while. Insurance is so expensive for sealers, it's my understanding, that to go out in these conditions and to only be able to take 100 animals, or even fewer, may not be economically viable for them.

When you start subdividing the quota, you run the risk of not taking all the quota. A vessel could be out there, but can only take 100 or 200 animals, then it has to leave. Another vessel may be stuck in ice and may not be able to get to the animals. The animals are only easy to get for a short period of time. Once they take to the water, when they become full-fledged beaters, then it becomes very difficult to take them. It becomes very expensive to move around in the ice and pick up these animals.

Breaking it down into ever smaller components makes it more and more possible that if we have a TAC of 325,000 animals then maybe only 250,000 or fewer will be taken. If you look back through the statistics, I'm not sure, but in the last 20 years there've probably only been two or three years in those 20-odd years that the entire TAC has been taken, for various reasons. Sometimes it's ice conditions or sometimes it could be that it was shut down too early. I think subdividing it is certainly very problematic.