Evidence of meeting #22 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sealing.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For the sake of the people watching, Mr. Winter referred to DFAIT. For the record, that's the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. A lot of people may not be aware of that.
My question is for Mr. Winter, actually. I want to draw on some of his experiences in dealing with the Europeans. How many years have you been doing this?
9:40 a.m.
Co-ordinator, Sealing Committee of the Fur Institute of Canada
Since about 1978-79.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
So you have pretty good experience. When you say that right now the emphasis is switching toward an immoral act, as it were, do you think--and this is a quick question off the top--that as a government we understand what they're doing, and the action we're taking is to combat them? I mean that if they say that what we're doing is so immoral--
9:45 a.m.
Co-ordinator, Sealing Committee of the Fur Institute of Canada
One of the big problems has always been that there's a complete misunderstanding of what the animal rights groups are doing in Europe. I've been throughout Europe and I've done all the things that parliamentarians do--television, radio, focus groups and all of that stuff, and I've done the same thing in the United States and in Canada. My experience is that this is not about economics. The seal issue is merely a tactic of the animal rights movement to further their agenda of changing the way human beings perceive the use of animals, period. Seals are merely the thin edge of the wedge.
In Europe and in many parts of the mainland as well, you're dealing primarily with urban people who have very little understanding of killing, period. When you kill in an outdoor environment, as we do, it's very easy to make things look repulsive and repugnant and ugly. Unfortunately, we live in a modern society where the words “repugnant”, “repulsive”, and “ugly” take on a moral value. If you're pretty, you're beautiful people, that's good. If you're not so pretty, that's not so good. This is pure crap, from any kind of a perspective, but that's what's being sold. The European population genuinely believes, because of this information, that what we do is morally repugnant. This is the message they've been sold by the animal rights groups.
European politicians, like politicians in Canada, are elected by constituents. What we feel and what we tell them is secondary to the consideration of the needs of their own political constituency. So what we're facing is the reality that as much as we may set the record straight by putting a reasoned Canadian perspective forward, we're tilting at windmills.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Mr. Winter, on the reasonable Canadian perspective that you speak of, you mentioned the Department of Foreign Affairs and DFO all running parallel towards a common goal. In my opinion, the weakest link in that entire chain is Foreign Affairs.
9:45 a.m.
Co-ordinator, Sealing Committee of the Fur Institute of Canada
Certainly my experience is that Foreign Affairs pays more lip service than dedication to the issue. I've been in embassies and consulates throughout western Europe. As a matter fact, I've even been in some in the Middle East, and believe it or not, it comes up out there. I wrote an editorial in 7Days, which is a Dubai magazine, after a four-page spread on Canadian sealing--in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The Canadian embassy in Abu Dhabi did not say one word. The Canadian consulate in Dubai did not reply one word.
Unfortunately--and again, this is just my personal experience--my feeling is very strongly that the individuals involved, as good as they may be, simply don't understand the issue or don't want to understand the issue. They respond according to the pamphlets that are sent out through DFO with about as much passion and sincerity as the average lemming. That doesn't wash with the media in Europe; it doesn't wash with the general public in Europe. Meetings behind the scenes are very good things, but unless we deal with the general public in Europe, we're finished.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Mr. Winters, one of the things that came up yesterday was the example they used of a group of politicians many years ago, including Frank Moores, a former premier, and many others I can't remember. I think someone made the comment that it was deemed a failure.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
If you agree with that, what happened there, and what do we need to do now to make our case over there?
9:45 a.m.
Co-ordinator, Sealing Committee of the Fur Institute of Canada
Frank Moores felt very strongly about the issue and wanted to do something about it. He put together a group of people, which consisted of members of his cabinet, some experts from the biological veterinarian side, and some sealers, and they travelled to Europe to convince Europeans, and to America as well. The problem with that kind of a situation is that the anti-sealing people simply ambush you if you go and do any kind of public presentation. This is just fodder for their machine. The media essentially will follow the protestor, not the explainer, and they had to call it off. They got ambushed in Washington, they got ambushed in London, they got ambushed in France, and they called it off.
The intention was very, very good. Travelling circuses like that, when you are dealing with very well-informed, very well-organized, very astute protest organizations, have a tendency to backfire. The individuals on that thing all had very good intentions, and they did individually make some very good remarks. The overall effect of it was negative.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
You mentioned the declaration earlier from the EU, and this is a pretty serious thing. Is it an EU issue, or each individual member of the EU, their member states? Is that more dangerous?
9:50 a.m.
Co-ordinator, Sealing Committee of the Fur Institute of Canada
I think they're equally dangerous. On the EU potential, the commission under Commissioner Dimas has been very good at sticking to what should be the considered points, which basically have to do with the conservation issues and with humaneness. Within the commission, he has been very focused. However, he is only one, and there is a tremendous amount of pressure on the commission to follow the will of the Parliament, to follow the will of the constituents. The animal rights groups are very, very active at that.
Secondly, within the individual parliaments, the animal rights groups have recognized that they need to change the focus, and they have been targeting more and more the individual parliaments, which will result in more activities like those in Germany. The problem with those things is that they then turn back in on the EU. Not only do they constitute a legitimization of the animal rights views through those individual parliaments, but it forces back on the EU more pressure to take the action, because their argument is that we're taking the action because you didn't do it. So it just turns back in on itself.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I have a quick question, and I ask the other members to weigh in on this as well.
Yesterday we talked about banning the hakapik. It's interesting, because when I was in Europe and we talked about this issue, banning the hakapik and that sort of thing, the animal rights groups actually adjusted the wording of their resolutions, or the politicians did, to include firearms as well. Evidently they want to get rid of the hunt. That's just my opinion, to preface it. But beyond that, I'd like to get your opinion, and perhaps others would like to weigh in, on the hakapik. We know the hakapik is not widely used here, but how do you feel about it?
9:50 a.m.
Co-ordinator, Sealing Committee of the Fur Institute of Canada
First of all, you have to look at the fact that what we're doing is killing animals. There are two humane ways to kill seals. One is a hakapik. One is a rifle. As you point out, in Newfoundland the hakapik is not widely used; about 90% plus of our seals are not killed with a hakapik. In the gulf it's a different issue, not because they like the hakapik any more than they like the rifle; it's simply a question of the ability to use a tool in an environment. They're working in much more confined, close areas.
Now, as for banning the hakapik, it's a humane tool. It has been proven again and again to be humane by veterinarians from every place you wish to consider. If you want to discuss the hakapik in terms of the optics, it looks terrible. There's this guy beating this little animal over the head. So if we stop doing that, all these people are going to go away? Malarkey. It won't happen.
So what you're doing in effect is you are trying to buy off these people by saying we know it's humane, but if you don't like it, it's not pretty, okay, we'll do that for you. You'll go away, yes? No, they won't. It reminds me a little bit of Neville Chamberlain getting off the plane when he came back from Berlin saying “peace in our time”.
Negotiating with fanatics doesn't end the further you go. In Newfoundland, there are two issues with the hakapik. There's the issue of killing with it, which we don't do a whole lot. There's also the issue of being on the ice without one, and a lot of sealers don't feel comfortable not having a safety tool. I don't think from two points of view that it's worthwhile pursuing banning the hakapik, either from the practical point of view, particularly for the people in the gulf, and from the point of view that I don't like the idea of abandoning a humane killing technique simply to appease people who aren't going to be appeased anyway.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy
Thank you very much, Mr. Winter.
Mr. Blais. Or was there someone else who wanted to comment on that?
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I was hoping to hear from the others, just quickly.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Town Councillor and Fisherman, Bonavista, As an Individual
Years ago they took away our gaff, and like Mr. Winters said, to gaff, we mostly used the gaff for safety reasons. I don't know if you people have ever jumped over the side of a boat on a pan of ice or not, but the hakapik to us right now is a safety issue as well as a humane way of killing animals.
9:55 a.m.
Fisherman, Twillingate, As an Individual
I agree with Mr. Butler on that. It's a safety tool, plus sometimes probably you want to make sure that the seal was dead and you use it for that purpose too.
The issue is to not have all these bloody cameras out there filming it. A permit should never be given. If I go to Alberta and I go into a slaughterhouse, I'd probably throw up, and I've killed thousands of seals, thousands. I don't like it. It's part of my livelihood.
So banning that is not going to make it go away. It's the pictures you've got to stop. Misinformation.
9:55 a.m.
Fisherman, Cottlesville, As an Individual
I agree with Mr. Gillett on that. I haven't killed a dozen seals with a hakapik, I guess, during my lifetime, but it is a safety thing and I believe that for the people who are killing with it it is a humane way to kill a seal. And to stop the activists from being out there, that's the key, I believe.
9:55 a.m.
Fisherman, Summerford, As an Individual
Definitely we need the hakapik or a gaff. Say you kill a seal out there 100, 150 yards from your boat and you send a man out with nothing in his hands--it's a suicide mission. If you happen to fall in the water, you've got that hakapik to haul yourself back out. And not only that, if you get up there and that seal is not dead you've got something there to finish killing it off. We need that hakapik, definitely.
9:55 a.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for appearing before us to discuss the seal hunt issue. I'm a member of the Bloc québécois and I represent the people of the Gaspé Peninsula and Magdalen Islands.
First, I'd like to make a comment on the hakapik. With what we heard about it in St. Anthony yesterday and here today, it's surprising that your premier, Danny Williams, took the liberty of making the statement he made on the subject not very long ago. It didn't help the cause at all because, at the height of a crisis, he amused himself by telling us that we should review the use of the hakapik. Let me tell you I found that inconsistent with and irrelevant to the debate we're currently involved in.
I don't think that helped us because, when you present your point of view before people, there should be an exchange based on the facts, on the truth. If you amuse yourself by making apologies or negotiating your way of doings things, you're losing from the outset. Although I very much respect Mr. Williams and I think he is paying a lot of attention to the seal hunt issue, I don't think he helped you, or us either, when he made that statement.
Furthermore, I would like you to provide us with slightly more detailed comments than those of Mr. Simms on the strategy of the Canadian government and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I think the work should be done by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. That department should be the leader in this strategy, in cooperation with the people from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade or any other department that could potentially help. Somewhere a leader is needed on this issue.
Mr. Winter, first of all I'd like to hear your comments on the ineffective strategy that has been used to date. What conditions would be necessary for it to be effective? What alternative solution or procedure do you suggest for it to become effective?
10 a.m.
Co-ordinator, Sealing Committee of the Fur Institute of Canada
It will be easier for me to answer you in English, if you agree to that.
As Monsieur Blais says, it hasn't been successful in the past, so if it ain't working, maybe it's time to fix it.
The question is whether DFO is really the leader. Well, DFO's mandate, according to their statements, their bureaucracy, and their minister--ministers, in the plural.... By the way, remarks about sealing and the strategies and activities of times past are not based in any way on a partisan view. As we all know, there have been a variety of governments over the period of time since the 1960s when this started, and the only thing that's been constant, really, is the bureaucracy, not the political side.
10 a.m.
Conservative