Unfortunately those activities are generally in large part—and when I say this I mean by all political parties—undervalued in terms of seeing them as economic drivers.
The immense reach of fishing, hunting, and related industries across this country, from some of the figures I indicated during my speech, bring billions of dollars a year to this economy, yet they are marginalized quite often and seen as frivolous activities or activities undertaken by a small cadre of people. Well 7.5 million people fishing is not small. If you add hunting, fishing, trapping, and outfitting together it's $15.2 billion to the annual economy. That is not chump change, excuse the expression.
In particular in urban centres they're seen as peripheral activities that are engaged upon by people out there, but the fact is that in large part people who hunt and fish in this country live in urban centres.
Most people who moose hunt for instance in northern Ontario live south of the French River. They live in places like Toronto, London, Ottawa, and places like that. They're judges, lawyers, and politicians and they come from all walks of life. They live in a lot of large urban centres, but it's always identified as an out there rural type of activity and not taken seriously.