Thank you.
I guess the strategy has been multi-pronged. Number one, it's to strike alliances with like-minded countries within the European Commission that would get us support for getting a resolution within. We have Denmark as one of the European communities. Sweden and Finland are there; I've met with them. I know that those countries, Sweden and Finland, have written to the European Union asking that no ban be instituted unless there's a scientific basis to do so.
These countries have responded and have worked internally. I don't think it's practical to expect a country within to start clamouring in a public forum, but working within, with like-minded people within and like-minded people outside, such as Norway. When we went to Italy, Norway came, and Denmark came, and we sat down with the delegation from Greenland—I met with the minister of fisheries in Greenland last week—to get a joint effort before the Italian committees in Parliament on those countries.
That's the like-minded approach. The other approach within the EEC countries that are spearheading this is to focus on the countries that are looking at legislation and to put forth facts to them that refute information they have that has been put on an emotional basis.
A third prong is a challenge: that if they're going to do something on a ban that is contrary to their obligations under the GATT and the technical barriers to trade positions of the WTO, we will challenge it as being a right to defend a legitimate hunt that's putting money into the pockets and that is a way of life, a tradition, a culture, an economic activity.
We have looked at that. As for the future, we're looking at a discussion, on the agenda tomorrow in Montreal with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the aquaculture and fisheries ministers, of this issue. I spoke with Premier Charest two weeks ago on this issue before he went to Paris, and he said he was raising the issue with the Prime Minister in Paris.
We are looking at how we control the provinces together. The Province of Quebec has indicated they're very supportive of this issue—the premier has indicated he is very supportive—and Newfoundland and Labrador and Nunavut, which form over 99% of the sealing constituency in Canada. We're looking at how we could put on a combined effort, whether with parliamentarians on parliamentarians, whether with premiers or fisheries ministers in these jurisdictions, over the next while.
That's in process now. What should we do in March on the international day of protest? Probably this will come to a head in four or five months, with decision-making maybe in late spring in the European Commission. How do we deal with this? How do we respond when these decisions come into effect?
So it is a fairly comprehensive look at this issue.