Since John touched on the regulations and that, I'm going to go into more depth on what the seal fishery is doing to all our other stocks of fish.
I've been fishing for 34 years and I've been involved in the fishery since my childhood. Over the past years, Newfoundlanders have been called barbarians because of the seal hunt. These people should look at their own countries and take into consideration how they butcher and utilize their own animals.
I see the seal as a predator of codfish, salmon, capelin, lumpfish, etc. In the bay where I fish, we see hundreds of thousands of seals preying upon our codfish. We see seals with codfish in their mouths. We see codfish remains left on the bottom of the ocean and on the ice pans with the belly part of the fish eaten.
In the spring of the year, when we put our lump nets out in the water to catch lumpfish, we catch seals in our nets. These seals do a lot of damage to our nets and give the fishing people extra hard work. Talking to the processors, they say that the netted seal is the best one. We are not allowed to bring these seals in to sell. They would meet the top price because of no damage done to the pelt.
Seals have been noted to be at the mouths of rivers, in harbours, and up on slipways. There shouldn't be any reduction of seal quotas. It should be based on whatever the market can sustain.
Veterinarians say that the way seals are slain for the seal fishery is one of the most humane ways it can be done today. Over the years, the seal fishery has changed. Right now we are not allowed to take any whitecoats. We are being watched by observers. DFO officials are out in full force to ensure regulations are carried out.
The seal fishery for fishermen in coastal communities is a very important part of our livelihood. We have taken seals for the past 500 years for food and as a means of making a living. We have thousands of people in our communities who are leaving. We have people who, at the end of the year, do not have the necessary earnings to qualify for EI. In the town of Bonavista, I, as the deputy mayor representing residents, see fishermen often fishing all summer, and when the fishery is over for the year, they have to go on a make-work program at $6.75 an hour to qualify for EI. Earnings from the seal fishery should be made insurable, like any other fishery. We have to pay income tax on these earnings.
The animal rights activists should not be allowed to obtain permits from federal or provincial governments to observe the seal fishery and to put more pressure on fishing people. These animal rights activists can afford to pay anyone to kill the seals and make it look worse than it actually is. If you had a nose bleed and you used white tissue, it would certainly show more than if a darker material were used.
These activists can cause dangerous accidents on ice fields. It is better for these people to be more concerned about the hungry children in the world. It is not common to see the activists going to slaughterhouses and making videos there. Our local stations, like CBC, VOCM, and NTV, shouldn't be carrying their advertisements, because these people are looking for publicity.
In closing, since 1992, Newfoundland and Labrador fish harvesters have had enough taken away from their livelihoods. The federal government started off with our commercial salmon and then promised that we would have a salmon fishery after five years. We are still waiting. On June 2, 1992, they took away our codfishery, and this year they gave us a quota of 3,000 pounds. It was a joke. Seals can eat more than we can catch.
Please don't take away anything else.