Mr. Morrow, thank you very much for your presentation today, sir.
Your analysis of elephants in parks and deer in cities may not go over well as a conclusive argument because as man has encroached upon their territories these animals have not had many places to go, whereas the ocean is a big area, and they have lots of places to go. So I do not know if that would be a compelling argument to government.
But you do make one point about Norway. As this committee knows, the people of Norway are fully supportive of their fishing industry and understand why seals need to be managed. In Canada there is still a huge amount of popular opinion against the commercial seal hunt, and this is among Canadians themselves.
Government has failed, I think, over the years to properly explain to Canadians why a commercial seal hunt is important for the economy and for the management of our east coast stocks. I would like to know if you would verify that statement.
Also--and I would like to thank our researchers for this--in 2001 the eminent panel of seal management stated that there is no scientific consensus on the effects that grey seals are having on the recovery of cod stocks, which means that scientists differ on the effect that grey seals have on cod stocks. I am just wondering if you could elaborate further on that.
The last point is this. You probably read in the Chronicle Herald newspaper last week an article by a woman named Debbie Mackenzie, who is from Mr. Keddy's riding, I believe. She was talking about diseases that seals carry, like brucellosis, tuberculosis, and so on. She made the allegation that CFIA or DFO is not doing a complete health analysis of the seal meat when it is being exported overseas.
I am just wondering if you could comment on that particular article, because I have not heard a countervailing argument to what she has stated about the handling of the meat, and the concern that fishermen should have for handling seal meat, and also about the various diseases that seals do carry, if indeed they carry them at all.