Thank you very much.
I understand exactly what you are saying and I can relate to your being emotional about the issue.
When we had an opportunity and found out that we could be represented by your chairperson on sealing issues, I wrote to him, strongly wording it that as our Canadian government you have a responsibility to represent our interests to the European countries and to deal with policies in government-to-government relations, representing our interests government to government, and we asked that you represent our interests to the various governments.
We know that as individuals we don't have much say on what happens with government policies, or even trends that are happening in the world, but that if our government were to represent us, we had a better chance of being heard. So as Canadians we have appealed to our Canadian government, who represent us and speak for us on those issues.
Again, addressing the issue of sealing to you and our special interest in sealing, I want to mention for the last time that we are an aboriginal people in Canada, but separate from the other aboriginal peoples in Canada. We Inuit are taxpayers. We are proud to be taxpayers, because we are Canadians. We are supporting the federal and provincial governments by paying taxes; therefore, we expect the federal and provincials governments.... There are Inuit in Nunavut, Quebec, Labrador, and in other regions who are taxpayers, and we go to our governments to support us, because we support our governments, as Canadians.
Thank you.