Fisheries Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2006

[Duarte Freitas, (EPP - Portugal), Parliament of Europe]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm Duarte Freitas. I'm Portuguese from the Azores, some islands in the middle of the Atlantic. I know quite well the problems of farmers and the fisheries communities.

The first thing I want to express is my solidarity with the people of Canada, the fisheries communities, that are hunting seals. I did not sign the declaration and I will never sign a declaration like this, because we have to understand the whole picture and not only what some NGOs and some media place before our eyes on the front pages. You have to understand this.

Of course there is the issue that we are not barbarians. We cannot kill the animals or the fish like we did two or three centuries ago. We have to upgrade on this, causing the least suffering possible for the animals, but we cannot be so naive as to think that we will not kill any more fish, any more animals, and we will eat vegetables.

This is not the point. I think one of our colleagues from Canada pointed that out very well. We are worried about the sustainability of the fisheries and the sustainability of the fisheries communities. They are linked. We cannot fish everything today, because we will not be able to sustain the ecosystem and the fisheries communities. We have to face this very carefully. We have to pay attention, and I am going to give an example. I heard what was said about the population of the seals. I will give you an example in my area, the Azores.

Until 1984 we hunted whales, but not with harpoons. We never hunted whales with that gun, but only with little boats with seven people, like ants trying to catch the whales. It was a very heroic thing. Many people were injured or died, of course, but it was the only way to get food for their families. After that time we stopped killing the whales, and then the dolphins too, of course, because it is a very media-attracting thing. At this time there are lots of whales and dolphins, and of course this does not help the balance of the ecosystem. We have to do something. What can we do? I am sure that some years from now--10 years, 15 years, I don't know how many--we will be talking about sanitary reasons and balance-of-the-ecosystem reasons to kill some dolphins and whales. Things are like this, and we cannot be naive.

I know it's politically correct now to defend everything that can hurt animals and fish. But, my friends, do we all want to be vegetarian? No, I don't think so. I don't want to be vegetarian only. I respect those who want to be, but it's voluntary. No one can make me be a vegetarian.

In the European Parliament especially, we sometimes go too much into politically correct things, and lots of times in this direction. We have to see the whole picture, and especially we have to take into consideration that some environmental NGOs have not only environmental reasons to be in the field. I have experience myself in working in the European Parliament with some NGOs who lobby for economic reasons, not for environmental reasons. I think this is growing. We have to pay attention to this, because some of the pressure they put is to earn money for their own organizations. I'm not talking about all of them in all situations, but we have to take this into really good consideration.

For example, in my family, we were farmers. I don't accept that anyone can say to me they care more for animals than I do. I don't accept especially an urban guy who comes to me saying that I don't respect animals. Please. My family and I have always been with animals, and along comes an urban guy who lives in a block and says he loves animals and respects them more than I do? Please. I don't accept this.

I'm sorry to be so frank, not politically correct, but I think that these days we cannot all stand in this politically correct direction. We have to have some cutting positions. If not, we will not get anywhere, anyway.

Thank you very much.

[Seán Ó Neachtain]

Thank you, Mr. Freitas.

Two more members have asked for the floor, and I will give them in order: Gary Titley first, and then Ian Hudghton.

[Gary Titley]

Thank you for those answers, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for offering to provide them to me in writing.

I don't think I got an answer to my question, though, about where exactly these markets are. I want to be clear as to what the picture is, as to where seal products from Canada go and what they are used for.

Secondly, you yourself raised an interesting point about global warming and the ice conditions changing and the ice actually retreating. I had some direct evidence of that on holiday in the Rockies, in walking up a glacier that has retreated by about two miles in the last 40 to 50 years. But because, as I understand it--and as I say, I'm not an expert in this field--the seals need the ice in order basically to give birth and for the youngsters to thrive originally, what studies have you done on the effect the retreat of the ice fields is having on the birth of the seal population, and does that influence decisions about quotas?

Finally, could I just be clear on your answer? You say that although there were variations in the TAC in different parts, the overall TAC was not exceeded, that this brought it on schedule.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I'll start with your last question first. On the overall TAC—I just double-checked the numbers again—there was a 6% overrun, but the overall TAC is still based on 70% of the herd, so there is some fluidity allowing us to change there. The herd that's left has to be 70% larger...am I correct in that?

I was close.

The TAC is actually set by what's called objective-based fisheries management. It's used to manage the harp seal hunt and it's designed to ensure that there's an 80% probability that the harp seal population will not fall below 70% of the maximum observed population. We can give you that in writing as well. That's the way it is set up.

The ice retraction is more of a difficulty for the sealers than it is for the seals. The seals will simply whelp on the islands and on the beaches and on land if the ice is not available. Certainly that has happened in Nova Scotia. The ice generally doesn't come in to the southwestern area of Nova Scotia, where I'm from, but it does come in as far as the Cape Breton Highlands, the northern part of Cape Breton Island. The last few years it has not been there, so we've seen, on all of what we call the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, seals whelping on the islands and on the beaches.

This year there was a bad storm in the middle of whelping season, and most of the pups were drowned because they got washed off the beaches. The NGOs actually wanted Natural Resources to go and pick these seals up and somehow bring them back and have a major human interference in the birthing grounds. It really wasn't a practical answer to something that was happening.

The markets are many-faceted. There is certainly a big market in skins, and it's a sustainable, biodegradable product. It's a good product: it's very tough; it's a very beautiful product. There's that market. A lot of those skins are processed in Europe and then sent on to Asian markets. There's a huge market in Asia for seals.

There's a market for the omega-3 oil. There's a lot of it sold in North America, and certainly in Canada. I suggest you all buy a bottle before you go home. It's an excellent product and it's good for your health.

There is some market in northern Europe, certainly in Norway and Russia, but I'm not the expert on the marketing. There is a large market and it's a growing market.

[Gary Titley]

I'll follow up here, with your permission.

What effect would it have on your market if the EU were able to, which I don't think it is, ban all seal products within the European Union? Would you simply sell more elsewhere, or would it have a detrimental effect?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I think the concern here is having a reputable organization shutting down a product not based on any realistic proof or fact. That's more our concern.

I agree with you. I don't think this would stand an outside chance of anything actually being passed before the WTO. I would very much agree with that statement. However, it does cause us some grief, quite frankly, in other areas and other markets. We don't simply market seals in Europe. It's a very small issue for us; however, it's still an important issue, and it should be for other nations as well.

Are there any more speakers? Some of our other members will want an opportunity.

[Seán Ó Neachtain]

Mr. Chairman, I have two more requests from our side: Ian Hudghton and Den Dover. We'll allow them, and then you can come back.

Thank you.

[Ian Hudghton]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Like Gary, I was interested in the value of seal products being imported to the EU and I had asked the European Commission in Brussels before we left and hadn't been able to get an answer to that. But one of your officials whom I spoke to yesterday gave me this paper this morning, which does give a breakdown. I'll give it back to you. Perhaps it would be more appropriate for you to answer the question than for me. It's certainly given here.

I think there's a question here of how you now get your message over to us. Well, that's part of the reason we asked that this particular issue be on the agenda here and partly why we want to go to the coastal areas that we're going to.

Perhaps it might be slightly helpful just to put on record the status of the declaration--where it is now, our role. A written declaration is, in effect, one of the tools we have as individual members or groups of members to promote whatever interests we might have, and if a majority of signatures is achieved, then it's over to the European Commission, which then is duty bound to respond. But I think I'm right in saying they're not necessarily duty bound to obey. Correct? So we now await the formal response of the European Commission.

I would suggest then that giving your views to the European Commission would be helpful before they give their formal response. Our position as members of the European Parliament is to reflect public opinion in our constituencies, and that's why, as I said earlier, I'm not the slightest surprised that we got a majority, because public opinion in our constituencies cannot accept this kind of thing. They just can't.

One of my questions is this. Is there nothing that can be done in terms of changing methods so that we don't have this kind of image being beamed around the world? As long as this can be circulated, it's a no-win, I would say, in terms of public understanding, apart from perhaps in our own coastal areas, where they do understand the economics of living off the natural resources of the sea and how, in the case of Scotland, there are many similar concerns from the point of view of our commercial fishing fleets.

We have had a number of questions suggested to us by various people, including the Grey Seal Conservation Society of Nova Scotia, based in Nova Scotia, who question the authenticity of the independent veterinary inspections that were mentioned. I just want you to amplify that you do in fact have veterinary inspection and approval and, in particular, respond to some significant allegations that a significant amount of skinning alive has been observed. Can you comment on that?

Also, very specifically, from the Nova Scotia organization, there are questions about potential food safety hazards in connection with the processing methods. The suggestion is that seals are processed under fish inspection protocols as opposed to meat, if you like, or mammalian meat, and the possibility that there may be certain infections carried by seals that could be passed to humans and into the food chain in the otherwise healthy products out of the seal.

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

I would like to hear your reaction to the same issue.

[Seán Ó Neachtain]

Mr. Chairman, I just want to clarify one thing. I would like to clarify this issue of the oft-quoted declaration and the technicalities of that, if I may. I will ask our representative to the commission, the EU Ambassador to Canada, Mr. Dorian Prince, to give you directly what that entails, because I think there is a misunderstanding perhaps and I would like it clarified at this stage.

[H.E. Dorian Ford Prince, Head of Delegation and Ambassador Designate, European Union - Delegation of the European Commission in Canada]

As was pointed out by Mr. Hudghton, the European Parliament declaration calls upon the European Commission to take action. The commission is not obliged to take action, and even if the commission were to take action, it would be in the form of a proposal, which would have to get a majority of the member states in the Council of Europe, plus approval of the Parliament. So it's a long process. But what is very important, I think, is that today there is a discussion at the European Commission in Brussels on the reply to the European Parliament.

If I could make a suggestion, you have talked about a study you are doing, and I think it would be very helpful if an extract of that study could be on the commission's table at the very latest on Monday next, because the commission will be obliged to reply to the Parliament very quickly, since not only is there a Parliament declaration, but there is also now a resolution of the Council of Europe. You can imagine the lobbying and all the pressure the animal welfare organizations will be putting on the commission, so I would expect the commission to come out with a formal reply to the Parliament within the next week. That is my guess.

I would strongly urge you to supply as much information as possible at the highest level. I would even suggest perhaps a letter to the two commissioners responsible: Mr. Dimas, who is the main commissioner responsible on our side, and Mr. Borg, of course, officially.

I would strongly recommend you to do that, and please, as quickly as possible.

[Seán Ó Neachtain]

Thank you, Ambassador.

Just to finalize on our side, I will ask Mr. Den Dover to take the floor.

[Den Dover]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Prince has covered one of the two points I wanted to raise, and that is, really, where are you up to? Your letter to the commission would be a very good summary, which you will copy to us, no doubt, because I would like to know whether you are undertaking a study, whether you have completed the study, and whether this is one of many ongoing studies all to do with sealing.

My other point is that under the topics listed for today we have “State of the fisheries in Canada: adaptation since the moratorium on cod fishing”. Cod fishing and the lack of stocks in European waters is a major issue, and it affects Mr. Titley's and my own region in the northwest very much. I hope that in the time remaining we will be covering that matter. We've dealt with the general study and your inquiry very satisfactorily, but if we could turn to cod and other aspects of fishing in Canada, I'd be very grateful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

If we don't have an opportunity before lunch, we can discuss some of those other issues—NAFO and the fish stocks—over lunch, but we will try to get to it, certainly.

I would just reply very quickly to the ambassador's request for our report. Unfortunately, our report will not be ready by next week. We have just completed our travels, and we have a bit of discussion. I would not think we'd have our draft report ready before Christmas, and since we don't sit during the month of January—or, as they say in Newfoundland, “January month”—it would probably be early February before we'd be able to have our report. We could, however, certainly put something together outlining a number of areas that might be helpful to the group, and we could give you our last report on sealing—which we did, I think, in 2002, so it's fairly recent and it addresses a number of the same issues.

If I may, I will ask our members to try to get another round in here. Perhaps I'd ask that some of these independent questions.... Maybe Mr. Byrne could reply to the issue of seals being skinned alive, and the working group of international veterinarians.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and 100,000 welcomes plus one to our distinguished guests--Your Excellency, and members. I'm delighted to have you here to participate with us in a very profound discussion. I think this actually covers probably more ground than simply seal hunting in Canada. It's actually how we deal with issues.

One of the things we admire most about the European Parliament and your efforts is that you take very difficult issues and you come together in common bond and common cause to actually work through issues on which many of you and your constituencies have differing views and opinions--but the reconciliation of those views are based on sound fact and analysis--and the communication of that sound fact and analysis, in terms of an overall direction for a policy. That is really the job of good, solid politicians, to be able to take constructively and responsibly somewhat difficult issues and to seek out the best and most responsible course of action, and then actually have it translated into policy that's in the best interest of our common gains.

This is one of these issues for one of those reasons. Environmentalism and environmental activism and its approach to how sustainable resources are exploited, whether it's appropriate or inappropriate, I think is going to be a more common thread for the European Parliament, as well as parliaments, whether it be the Canadian Parliament or parliaments throughout western democracies, generally speaking.

I feel very strongly that on the basis of an analysis of the facts, the rhetoric and the innuendo being brought forward by those who have a vested interest in supporting misinformation will be brought down. That information will not stand up to the test of scrutiny. For example, one of the lead proponents of some of the information that's put forward to the European Parliament and to your respective governments is the International Fund for Animal Welfare. They've taken a very, very hard position on the Canadian seal hunt. Reflect very carefully on the name of the organization. It's the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Their key objective is to raise funds.

The question was asked about getting that image off the newspaper. The reason that image is in the newspaper is because the Government of Canada openly supports observers from all of these organizations coming to the hunt and observing for themselves and taking pictures. There is no attempt to disguise what it is we're doing. Unfortunately, it is very strongly misused. The images that have been assembled do not properly represent exactly what is proceeding. In fact, the image that Canadian sealers are still in the process of hunting whitecoats, despite the fact that there has been no whitecoat hunt since 1987, still persists in the lobbying efforts of those who would purport that it exists.

Therefore, if someone were to use misinformation in one instance, they would potentially or probably use misinformation in other instances. It has been reported to you as parliamentarians that we've exceeded the quota by 40%. The facts do not stand up to that point. In fact, often, in many years--most years--the Canadian quota has not been caught because of market conditions or because of ice conditions.

Approximately four years ago, because of the natural biological characteristics of the animal--its fecundity and its sexual maturity--a multi-year quota plan was able to be put in place. In other words, if quota was exceeded in one particular year, it could be taken from another year in a three-year timeframe, so that there would always be sustainable limits to the harvest and it would be conducted responsibly. That's an element that doesn't necessarily hit the pages in tabloids or in respected newspapers, either.

[Lasse Lehtinen]

May I interrupt you? Is this the only way to hunt?

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

No, there are two ways that seals are harvested. One is through a device called a hakapik. Approximately 10% of animals are harvested using that technique; 90% of animals are harvested using harvesting methods used in other harvests: the rifle.

In terms of the killing method--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

There is the issue of seals being skinned alive and the international working group. Maybe you could deal with the that.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

In some instances, there has been video produced of a seal purportedly being skinned alive. In the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, there was an instance where a particular group.... They're very difficult to identify because of the circumstances in which they're working, but a particular group came to the hunt purporting to be a hunting advocacy TV show. They hired sealers to take them out on the ice. They then asked the sealers to engage in hunting activity, skinning the pelt and so on. The image that was then portrayed.... It turned out that the film crew were not hunting advocates; they were working on contract for animal rights groups, and they took the image in a completely different context from what reality dictated and then projected the image as if animals were being skinned alive.

There is a swimming reflex, as with chickens. When chickens are beheaded, they will continue to move about for a period of approximately ten minutes, I understand, and there is a swimming reflex in seals that will continue to cause a flutter, a twitch, a nervous twitch, after the fact.

That's a really important issue, because again it plays to what we are all facing as parliamentarians--what is the fact, what is the reality, and what is the interest of someone who may have a different point of view or different interest.

On the issue of food safety--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Byrne, your time has almost expired.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

We're done?

An interesting issue was brought forward by the Grey Seal Conservation Society. The group itself has a very limited membership, we'll put it that way. It's a very small membership. However, we'll respect that they do have a point of view. The issue of parasites and the transfer of communicable diseases to humans by consuming seal products were raised. There's no medical evidence of this. There's no scientific evidence of this, but committee members did offer some anecdotal evidence at that point.

Seals have been harvested by aboriginals in Canada in the Arctic since time immemorial. A very large database would be available. There is no incidence, no reports, and no evidence whatsoever of Canadian or Russian aboriginal, Inuit, or Innu being susceptible to any parasitic infection or any other kind of infectious disease. And that's one of the things I'll leave off on.

The seal hunt is not a new fishery. It's not a European fishery, although it was started by Europeans in the 17th century. But it's also an aboriginal fishery, and in terms of the economics of this, our first nations are very dependent on it as a source of income and as a source of food. It's also ceremonial. It's a cultural practice. In terms of a modern-day harvest, almost all skins today, all pelts, are transported to Norway for processing.

So these are important points in analyzing fact versus fiction, reality versus some other points of view.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you for that, Mr. Byrne.

As you can see, and as I said before, our membership are very passionate on this subject. We will try to get all the questions answered and have all our members speak.

Mr. Asselin will be next. Cinq minutes, monsieur Asselin.

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Merci beaucoup.

A new member, whom I'll introduce, has just arrived at the table, and that's Mr. Peter Stoffer.

I'll go next to Mr. James Lunney.

I would ask my colleagues to try to answer some of the questions that have been asked; otherwise I'll have to take the committee's time and answer them myself. And I know that's not adequate response from my colleagues. And then we'll come back to Mr. Stoffer if he has any immediate questions.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I also would like to welcome the members who have travelled to be here from across the EU, and the ambassador. Your Excellency, welcome. I think it's a very stimulating discussion, and I appreciate the opportunity.

I don't know if you had a chance to meet our minister, Loyola Hearn. He's from the island of Newfoundland--and you mentioned being from an island, Mr. Chair. He has written an interesting song, From an Island to an Island, which I gather is carrying some currency and being played in Europe, actually, about the Irish heritage in Newfoundland.

I'm from the far west coast of Canada. Vancouver Island is my riding. This is not a Vancouver Island issue. In fact, some of you, probably those of you who live in Ireland and Scotland, are closer to Newfoundland than I am geographically, but with my colleagues, I feel passionate that this is not an issue that Newfoundland and Labrador and the coastal area of Quebec or Atlantic Canada should have to deal with alone. As Canadians, I feel that we have to stand with them on this issue because it has been so misrepresented, and because this island of Newfoundland was colonized by people from Europe largely because it had one of the most prolific fishing grounds in the world, in the Grand Banks.

We know that the problem in management has been a big one, and NAFO addresses some of those concerns, because our continental shelf goes beyond the 200-mile limit, and so on. Newfoundland has suffered tremendous depopulation. The reason people lived there was largely the abundance of the sea. We have huge problems.

Give me a couple of minutes. I think this has to be said.

The chair wants me to address the specific question. I'm getting there.