Good morning and welcome to all of you. I am the member for the riding of Manicouagan, which is located along the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River, and extends to the Labrador border. In my riding, there are a number of municipalities or small communities living along the Lower North Shore of the St. Lawrence where fishing is the sole source of income.
We know that the fishing industry has been hit by a drop in the cod, crab and shrimp stocks. It has been demonstrated that the seal population feeds mainly on cod, crab and shrimp. Faced with a disappearing fish stock which is unrelated to fishing but, rather, is the fault of the seal predator, the federal government was forced to impose a moratorium on quotas. Quotas were reduced in certain areas of the fishery. This has led to a great deal of poverty in some villages. Fishermen meet their quota after four, five, or six weeks at most, and can no longer continue to fish. Because the moratorium does not allow them to continue to fish after they have met their quota, they can no longer provide for their families. And since they do not qualify for employment insurance, they are faced with extreme poverty. Some of them can barely afford to feed their families.
Earlier, my colleagues appeared to be rather delighted, even joyful, in showing us a newspaper photo. As my colleague Mr. Blais explained, the picture that you see in the newspaper represents only one side of the issue. If you look at the other side, you will see the following: the hunter went to work in the morning; he killed a seal so that he could put some food in the refrigerator, and take it from the refrigerator to put on the table to feed his eight or nine children, to feed his family. The work that the hunter did that morning to put meat and food on the table also generated a certain amount of money to allow him to buy clothing for his children and send them to school so that they might enjoy a proper standard of living. That is what life is like in the North Shore villages where the only livelihood is fishing or seal hunting.
Moreover, global warming means that things are becoming more and more difficult. Our hunters and fishers are extremely concerned, and have been for many generations, about being able to feed their family, about ensuring a standard of living that, often, does not allow them to aspire to anything other than poverty.
You must understand that the hunter who goes on to the ice flow in the morning will be killing a seal so that his family can eat, so that he will be able to send his children to school, and buy them clothes so that they might have an honourable living; his intention is not to do any harm to society, but rather to benefit from the resource which is available and which he is allowed to use in order to feed his family.
That is the other side of the story. Thank you.