Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the minister and to your guests at the table.
Minister, you've raised more often than any anti-sealing activist organization the situation of Senator Mac Harb. In all your presentation you never once mentioned the fact that this Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans unanimously endorsed the seal hunt. You've never acknowledged that we've had a take-note debate where every political party in Canada endorses the seal hunt. You did not acknowledge that just last night we had a motion of concurrence on the standing committee's report, where every political party and every parliamentarian in the House unanimously concurred with our support for the seal hunt. It seems to me that when you say this decision is about pure politics, you're part of the politics.
But sealers in sealing communities are often very frustrated and angered by the hypocrisy of the activists against the hunt, and that seems to be what you suggest drives the politics. Listening to those who promote the misinformation about the hunt for their own financial gain, it's really kind of tough for us to be able to walk in their leather shoes. And we all agree with that. This hypocrisy is nothing new. But we're here to talk about what your government is doing today.
Hypocrisy seems to be part of the strategy, because we've just had a process whereby we've had Canada and the European Union engaged in a basis for discussion on free trade talks at the very point in time when the European Union basically started those talks with an illegal trade activity, the banning of Canadian seal products. It's illegal under the WTO.
What do we do? We walk into those discussions and say we will not let that illegal trade ban pollute or confuse our trade discussions with the EU. It's been pointed out that would be a very serious offence to what would be a big market for Canada, that we'd lose a lot of jobs as a result, and that we shouldn't do that. Why did the EU do it? Why did the EU try to pollute those talks with an illegal trade ban?
Why is it that when you say we've been very vigorous in defence of the seal hunt, the Canadian Sealers Association, the Fur Institute of Canada, and other people involved in this industry, like Dion Dakins, said Canada wasn't even present the day of the vote in the EU Parliament? They were very, very vocal. Were they politically motivated to do that? Was the Canadian Sealers Association politically motivated to make that criticism of the federal government's presence, or lack thereof, at the EU Parliament?
Minister, what do you have to say about that?