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.