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.