Thanks.
On behalf of all committee members, I want to thank all four of you gentlemen for your very sound presentations.
You've touched on what seems to be a common thread. We're all saying that we want a viable sealing industry, that we want seals taken out of the water. I think this committee would agree that sealing is a viable, renewable natural resource that can sustain healthy harvests, and we can do so ethically and sustainably. One thing that seems to be common throughout all the presentations is that we're not helping ourselves actually achieve all of that.
A number of issues have been raised here. For instance, because of regulation, we have confusion on opening dates, which is leading to problems on the ice. We have DFO failing to actually act on sharing principles within provincial shares in the gulf. DFO has actually created the potential for quota overruns, because they don't appear to be adhering to the official language law. As well, the information provided here about the answering machine is just incredible, as far as I'm concerned. There's also the issue raised about the HST. Revenue Canada now, I understand, after years of this not being an issue, is going after sealers to collect HST from sales dating back, I think, to over five or six years ago.
It seems to me that to actually make the sealing industry viable, in addition to our international issues we have to tackle our domestic issues. We have to make it whole lot easier.
Rene, you mentioned the harassment that sometimes comes to sealers, and that you had some personal experience in that regard. You spoke about the Internet, and about telephone calls. Can you tell this committee about some of the things you went through personally?