Most of it has been covered, but I will go through what I've got here. I might overlap some of it, but I'll go through it.
The seal hunt off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador is a very profitable hunt for all, not only for the value but also to help protect other species in our waters by keeping the seals from overpopulating. The seals reproduce at a rapid rate and they also eat three times their weight every day. If this species is not controlled, it will take over and help to destroy the food chain, which would not only be devastating to the people but to all the other species that live in our oceans.
The protesters in the southern gulf, where I do most of my sealing, are one of our major concerns. Protesters are a major concern for the people who are involved in the seal hunt in any way.
In the spring, as sealers are gathering their things to participate in one of the most dangerous fisheries in the world, the protesters are out taking videos of the seal hunt to help them to entice the rich and get money to come to the seal hunt. They show films, and falsely inform people who do not have any idea of how this hunt works. They tell them how barbaric we are, which is not true.
You'll meet them on the ice. They'll come at you--and I've had experience with this--with goggles on, eyes covered, and long sticks with sharp ends shouting vulgar language and putting video cameras in your face for footage that they will later show to other people who were not there. They'll get the name of your boat, then they'll find your phone number and find out where you live, post your name on the Internet, and get people to call and threaten your family, threaten to kill your family, to skin them alive, and so on.
I think those are the barbaric people. Do you think such people should be allowed either on the ice or in a helicopter flying over while sealers are at work? No, they should not. Anyone caught doing so should be prosecuted.
Once last year I was listening to an open-line show, and this caught me off guard. Our federal fisheries minister, at that time, got on the open-line show. He said that we should ignore those protesters. Ignore--I think that's a cowardly way for any federal minister to try to get around this. How do you ignore someone who's coming at you with sticks and pointing video cameras in your face? I think it's the easy way out, but it's not going to help. Ignore--no, we can't ignore those people. We've got to face those people front on. Even the safety of the families is involved here. When you get caught in it, it's like I've been caught into—
The pupping of the gulf seals happens in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, close to the Magdalen Islands and close to P.E.I., in the Northumberland Straits. This is the place those protesters--P.E.I. mainly, because they're probably scared to go anywhere else--are using for a base. They've got the motels there and they've got their helicopters there. I don't think they'd dare try it anywhere else. P.E.I. is probably used more as a tourist attraction than for business. I don't know, really, if they've got any sealers in P.E.I., or it's a very small amount. That's some of our problems right there, with those protesters.
The Magdalen Islands hunters have an earlier opening date than that of the Newfoundland and Labrador sealers. Therefore, they have to go and pick their seals, because they can't have the whitecoats on. So they go and pick their seals. They still kill mostly beaters. But there are more white seals around.
If they had a later opening date, an opening date similar to that of the Newfoundland fleet, then you wouldn't have as big a problem with those protesters. If the opening date was later, the ice heats up and you wouldn't have those big sheets of ice where you can go around with a Ski-Doo and have somewhere where they can pitch their helicopters. By that time, most of the seals are black anyway, or beaters. So you wouldn't have quite the same problem with the protesters if you had a later opening date, the same as we do. What I'm saying is that you wouldn't have those big sheets of ice that they could go out and run around on and put your helicopters on.
You know, you have a bunch of people there, going around with high-powered rifles, water hunting and stuff like that. Then you have this crazy bunch of people running around, lying down in front of seals, coming and shaking cameras in your face and shaking sticks at you. If someone doesn't soon do something, you know, something's going to happen. I hope there's something done before it's too late. Because it's serious, you know. You have people out there. I've been running without incident. Here on the front, we don't have it so much. But when you get up with a rifle, and you're far from the seal, probably you won't see that guy.
I'll touch on the hakapik, although Wilf touched on it too. But I will touch on it.
The hakapik was introduced to the sealers partly to replace the gaff. The gaff didn't have this knob on the end of it for killing the seals. So they pretty well came up with this new idea with the hakapik. This is mainly used on the larger sheets of ice in the southern gulf, close to P.E.I. This weapon would not commonly be used for sealers if there were a later opening date, as Newfoundland and Labrador sealers have.
In the hunt by the Newfoundland and Labrador fleet, I would say probably 95% is with rifles. The only thing we use the hakapik for is to sometimes make sure you finish killing the seal if it's not killed, or to retrieve the seals if there's a seal beyond the pan. At least you can get out there and retrieve one. By banning the hakapik, you're only giving those protesters more fuel and taking the safety away from the sealers. Please do not ban the hakapik, because it's used more as a safety feature in retrieving the seals, not for killing the seals. That's in the Newfoundland and Labrador seal hunt, even in the northern gulf, where I'm from, although our hunt is a little bit earlier than the front hunt.
On overcapacity, we have a problem with overcapacity. I remember years ago that there were probably only 10 or 15 large boats in the seal hunt, when the seals weren't of any value. There weren't that many under-35-foot boats when they weren't of any value. Now there are 200 larger vessels plus, probably. I don't know what it is. Right now, to me, DFO cannot control it any longer. They don't know how to control it, because there are too many of us.
I think the hunt should be open only to people that have fishing licences and a CFV number, not to people who do not rely on the fishery for a living, because we all know that it's very valuable to those people. Probably, with help from the fishermen staying back home, we'd never have quite so much out-migration. I don't know. I think it should be strictly for the people that rely on our fishery for a living.
Now to HST and EI. How did it come about that the sealers have to collect the HST from buyers, when we all know that it is the place of the buyers to retrieve any HST that has to be collected? If it was to happen that we started doing this, it would be an added expense that would have to come from the sealers' pockets, because who will ever get the money from those small companies? No one.
I'll touch on EI for a bit. Is the seal hunt a job? When you are on the ice floes from daylight until dark and return only to have an hour or two of sleep, to punch in a couple of hours at rest, and start again, it sounds like a job to me. So why is it that any income made from the seal hunt is not insurable? I don't know the answer, but I would like to get a reply from someone who can inform me of what's happening during those days. Maybe if we were counting this as insurable earnings it would prevent some of our out-migration if it would help people to qualify for EI.
These issues are some that we all need to think about, get answers to, and not have put on the back burner. Because we have a really good fishery here for everyone involved, and we do not wish to see such a good thing come to an end.
Thank you.