Fisheries Committee on Dec. 12th, 2006

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

It seems rather odd to me, Ms. Aldworth, that you would not follow them so there was an absolute clear basis of evidence.

[Rebecca Aldworth]

Can I please answer?

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

When I finish my question, you can answer.

It is odd that you would not follow so there would be a clear path of evidence suggesting those things you saw.

I'm not a prosecutor or a lawyer, but basically there's no basis of evidence that was presented in any of those videos that any prosecutor could use to establish any violation. In fact—

[Rebecca Aldworth]

There actually is.

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

Well, not that I saw. The film broke away from the actual coverage of the commercial hunt itself and then the video zoomed in on individual animals.

[Rebecca Aldworth]

I had four minutes to show you footage. These are clips from the footage. The footage that was turned over to DFO does—

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

This is a parliamentary legislative committee, Ms. Aldworth. I'm sure that in four minutes you could—

[Rebecca Aldworth]

Can I answer the question? You've had the floor for quite a while, and I'm trying to address your question.

You're my mother's MP. I know you've made some allegations about footage. She's the one who has to deal with me when I come back from the ice floes, and she's not very happy about those statements.

We film without editing. Of course there will be times, if the sealers move out of the area, when you will shut off your camera and walk over to the next area where they're working and begin filming again. Because it is legal evidence, the footage we give to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is raw uncut footage. It shows violations. It shows faces. It shows the boats these people are from.

Over the past several years, I've been involved in submitting hundreds of those apparent violations. To date, not a single charge has been laid. I am hopeful this will result in a charge. I am very hopeful. I am working very closely with DFO to get charges laid. They've identified the people involved, they are moving forward, and I hope it will result in a charge. But for every clip of a video like this, we have hours and weeks and months of footage you could look at if you want to come to my office. Any time. I will sit down with you and go through it. We have nothing to hide.

When we go to the seal hunt, we land in our helicopters in the middle of the ice floes. We walk to where the sealers are operating, and we film. We film openly. There is no editing. There is no changing of the images.

You mentioned doctored footage or interfering with images. The only organization I've ever heard of that was involved with something like that was the CBC, in 1964. That's not an animal protection group; that's a news agency. There is no animal protection organization that has ever been involved in faking, doctoring, or staging any footage of the commercial seal hunt. We're an animal protection group.

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

Or calling for the murder of those that would prosecute.... There has never been anyone or group involved in any animal rights activity that has ever called for the murder of those involved in the commercial sealing activities. Nor would there ever be any ethical animal rights type of group that would post a sealer's name on a website and instruct people to call them and threaten their children. That would never, ever occur—ever.

[Rebecca Aldworth]

I have never seen any documented evidence of what you're talking about and I would never advocate such a thing. I don't know anybody in this movement who would do that.

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

One final question, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Lavigne, is the World Wildlife Fund a credible organization, or is that an organization that bases itself on false science, false beliefs, and false premises?

[Dr. David Lavigne]

The World Wildlife Fund is a very large international conservation organization, and like most large organizations, sometimes people working for those organizations make silly statements.

You have perhaps noticed in my presentation that on the one hand, although you don't have the end notes that I submitted to the committee yet, some of the statements made by WWF Canada in recent years have been slightly strange, saying, for example, that the hunt is not a conservation issue. On the other hand, I was on a panel a couple of weeks ago with WWF's climate change expert in the United States, and in fact I cited their work and their recommendations as essentially a recommendation to this committee.

So WWF is obviously a very important player in this field, but they tend not to get terribly involved in Canada's seal hunt because they claim to be a conservation organization and not an animal welfare organization.

Now, I would like to make one point. You made some comments about animal rights groups, and I just want to emphasize that IFAW is an animal welfare organization with interests in conservation. It is not an animal rights organization. If it were an animal rights organization, I presume the name would be the international fund for animal rights, and clearly we're not that. There is a difference between animal rights organizations, on the one hand, animal welfare organizations, on the other—and indeed conservation organizations, on the third hand. So that is for clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We will go to our next questioner.

I have a point of clarification on the World Wildlife Fund. Mr. Byrne's question was whether you accept the World Wildlife Fund as a legitimate organization. I didn't hear a clear answer. On one hand, you seem to accept some of the things that may suit your argument, but there are other things the World Wildlife Fund are stating that you don't accept.

So do you accept them or do you not?

[Dr. David Lavigne]

I don't accept everything that any organization says. That comes from my scientific training.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

You accept part of what they say, because you quoted them in your discussion.

[Dr. David Lavigne]

You can see the contradiction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

You have to appreciate it's very difficult for us as a committee. We need to make very clear recommendations on this hunt, and we have to have very clear, factual evidence to make those recommendations on.

[Dr. David Lavigne]

Well, let me give you a clear and factual statement of my problem. On the one hand, WWF Canada says this is not a conservation issue. On the other hand, WWF, in the United States, is making recommendations that apply to this particular conservation issue. There's a conflict there, and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

The people who are in Canada, on the ground, are making recommendations not accepted by their American sisters and brothers.

[Dr. David Lavigne]

No, what I'm saying is that the World Wildlife Fund around the world, I would think—and I can't speak for the World Wildlife Fund—recognizes that global warming is a conservation issue. Global warming is an issue in this particular discussion. So to say, as one WWF spokesperson has said repeatedly, that this is not a conservation issue is simply not consistent with the evidence. You wouldn't be having this meeting if this hunt was not a conservation issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I'll leave Monsieur Blais to continue along that line.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to our witnesses.

I will take the same tone you took at the beginning of your presentation, Ms. Aldworth, which was provocative. You are, quite simply, liars. I repeat: you are simply liars. You lie with regard to...

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

You do need to be polite, Monsieur Blais, s'il vous plaît.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

That's right, I was adopting the same tone.

Okay. You are liars.

[Rebecca Aldworth]

[Inaudible--Editor].