When is the last time anybody ever heard, in a public battle, facts defeating emotion? It doesn't happen. We are sitting in a situation in response to exactly what you have identified. On paper, a lot of what our people are doing looks great. In reality, it doesn't work. We've had 40 years to figure this out. And unless we change our strategies, I don't think we're going to be around.
My biggest concern is, to follow up on what you're thinking.... The people and the individuals in the Department of Foreign Affairs are very nice people. They're doing what they're told to do, but they have no commitment and no heart in it. And you can't blame them. They don't understand it, most of them. They have very little exposure to it. They've never been to the Magdalen Islands; they've never been to Nunavut; they've never been to Newfoundland and Labrador. To them, it's a foreign concept. They're mostly urban people. They don't associate their food with the killing of a baby cow. They don't associate their kid gloves with a young animal. Yet we're asking them to go out and take a brochure that is produced by DFO and explain something. How can they put passion in it? How can they put emotion in it? And if you don't put passion and emotion, you're lost.
You have to realize the enemy we are looking at is not the parliamentarians of Europe. It's not the little old lady in Hamburg who donates money to an anti-sealing group. It's not the little old lady in Boise, Idaho, who gives money. It's not the little old lady in Manchester. It's the people who put the propositions before the little old ladies that encourages them to donate. That's who the enemy is.
And these people are smart. They are media savvy; they are well organized. And we go off half-cocked. This year, we're sitting around. I was watching an exchange of e-mails. Who is the leading group? DFAIT is saying it's FA; FA is saying it's DFO; DFO is saying it's somebody else. We're going around in circles again. You'd think after 40 years we'd have our act together. So far, I don't really think we do. The ultimate payer, if we don't have our act together, is the citizens of those areas that depend on it. These are rural communities throughout eastern and northern Canada where nobody gets a chance. Their income is comprised of a mosaic: a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of the other thing. All put together, it looks like a pretty picture. You take one stone out and the whole thing crumbles and they can't live in the villages. And sealing is that stone.