Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will likely be the second person to stay within the timeline.
I want to welcome our guests. I have appreciated your questions—the ones I was here to hear. You've come, I think, with a certain amount of objectivity, wanting to base your opinion and view of things on the facts, and we appreciate that.
In summary, I think, although we've heard a fair bit of passion from each of the members, which I share.... I'm also from the west coast of Canada, where no seal hunt takes place, but I was with the committee when it visited sealers and was near the places where it happens, and it gave me a different perspective on things from what I might otherwise have had. I encourage you to try to have that experience as well.
I think there are probably three facts that we, in summary, would want to make for you to take away.
One is that the seal population is not endangered. There is no evidence that it is. It's not regulated by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. There are almost six million harp seals in Canada, and there could be more. So that is not part of the issue.
Secondly, harvesting methods are humane. That's always been the conclusion of the Canadian and American veterinarian associations, whether you go from the 1986 Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing or to more recent studies by the independent groups. I know our researchers would be happy to provide copies of all of those to you if you haven't seen them already. But clearly, as has been said here, the harvesting methods are humane.
Thirdly, something that I think has been undervalued by critics, but hopefully not by you, is that sealing comprises a significant part of the income of sealers and is a significant part of the social and cultural fabric of many of our coastal communities, and we ought not to undervalue it. The seal hunt is very important to Canada, and it's important to us that it be understood as fully as possible and as objectively as possible. You can help us with this, and we appreciate that.
I look forward over lunch, if not now, to questions about fish stocks. Concerning the northern cod, for example, Mr. Dover, this committee in a previous Parliament did a study on the northern cod. In fact, we were trying to answer the question why, since we had a moratorium in 1992, we have not seen a significant recovery on the offshore of northern cod. In fact, our study concluded that it may be a maximum of 2% of the biomass it had in the 1960s or 1970s, when it was near its peak. Why, since we have not basically fished it domestically since 1992, have we not seen a recovery?
That report was published by this committee in 2005. You might want to take a look at it, if you haven't. I'm sure we'd all be glad to discuss some of the things we learned and some of the things we need to learn still, based on that study and other things we've done.
Thank you again for being willing to come and to have this interchange. We have appreciated your questions and look forward to being able to answer them in a more detailed fashion. Thank you very much.