Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, honourable members of the committee.
I really appreciate the chance to present before you today. I'm going to read my prepared remarks and look forward to your questions. I hope there are many of them. I have a lot more to say than I have time allocated for.
I'm going to start by telling you a little about our organization, Maritime Seal Management Inc., MSM. MSM is a federal not-for-profit corporation formed in May 2014. Its objectives include, to implement a series of recommendations to DFO science and the 2012 recommendations of the Senate standing committee regarding grey seals; and to develop and execute a strategy for responsible grey seal population management in the Maritimes that provides biodiversity within our marine ecosystem and promotes fish stock recoveries in the region.
MSM's co-founding directors hold considerable expertise in marine science, management decision-making, private equity investment, investment banking, business strategy, international market development, fish processing including seal processing, and seal harvesting.
Next I want to tell you a little about a proposal that we submitted to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in December 2015. MSM partnered with a group of concerned aboriginals in New Brunswick who were organized under the name Aboriginal Conservation and Ecology, which I'm going to refer to as ACE, to jointly propose to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans a comprehensive and risk-managed approach to resuming the traditional aboriginal harvest of grey seals in the Maritimes and Quebec.
Our proposal carries the following features. It proposes an aboriginal subsistence harvest and not a commercial harvest. Under our plan, a range of finished and semi-finished products would be produced from the harvested seals and marketed in several distinct markets to help recover the harvest, production, and marketing costs, and to ensure adequate capitalization of the program. It proposes that financial surpluses remaining after the program financing and costs are paid would be dedicated entirely to aboriginal social programs, particularly including those related to teen mental health and suicide prevention, youth skills development, and aboriginal nutrition programs.
It proposes targeting the harvest of seals one year of age and older, so no seals younger than one year of age would be harvested. It proposes a value-based utilization of all parts of the harvested seal, so that nothing would go to waste. It proposes that harvest levels be set based on ecological goals and conservation targets, and following a precautionary management approach. It proposes the refinement of harvest methods to help ensure consistency with internationally accepted standards for the humane harvest of animals. Lastly, it proposes to follow an inclusive, open, and transparent approach that would include scientific monitoring by an international panel of independent scientists and/or scientific organizations.
To give you an overview of the people who were involved in our organization and our proposal, there's an exhibit 2, which I've provided to the clerk. I'll just read a paragraph on that.
The proposal combines the contributions of diverse experts with decades of experience in seal products marketing, aboriginal and mainstream fashion design, biochemistry, life sciences, industrial engineering, and international co-branding and market development for premium consumer products. It also proposes to utilize existing processing capacity capable of handling all parts of the harvested seal with only minimal additional capital investment required.
Lastly, I want to give you a few points on a decision analysis level regarding the approval of our proposal, which we hope is forthcoming. I'm going to read out some points.
Our proposal offers the Government of Canada an opportunity to simultaneously achieve some of its stated objectives, such as job creation; the support of more biologically sustainable, bio-diversified, and financially rewarding commercial and recreational fishery sectors; and the strength and well-being and socio-economic development of Canada's aboriginal peoples.
The potential for negative repercussions on the Government of Canada for supporting our proposal arise principally from the risk of poor public understanding of what is being done and why it's being done. This is particularly true regarding populations in large urban centres such as the Toronto region, which are geographically, economically, and culturally distanced from fisheries, and generally from natural environments.
MSM and ACE, together with specialized professional partners and public celebrity figures, have formulated specific and thoroughly reasoned plans for achieving the accurate and broad public understanding of the cultural, social, and ecosystem benefits of our proposed seal harvest, as well as the measures adopted to ensure our clear and consistent adherence to high standards of animal welfare. That's a point that would reduce the risk that is naturally associated with the approval of our proposal.
MSM went to great lengths to understand the inner workings, operational priorities, and sophisticated decision-making processes of organizations that historically have opposed commercial seal harvesting by non-aboriginals, many of which continue to run anti-seal hunt campaigns to assist their own fundraising efforts. MSM's proposed harvest features a series of attributes that negate the major points on which such groups typically base their criticisms of commercial seal harvests. The objectives of saving species at risk from extirpation and promoting biodiversity are consistent with the priorities of such groups' existing supporters.
Based on our analysis of all parties positions and objections, we do not believe that anti-seal harvest groups likely would elect to vocally oppose our proposed harvest and draw resources away from their more legitimate powerful and successful campaigns that are ongoing. They would gain little or no incremental benefits by opposing our proposed harvest, while still bearing the significant risk of alienating supporters or creating fractions among their supporter groups.
If we have a little time left, I'd like to speak to one of the topics that arose earlier on whether seals eat salmon. The example I like to give is that if you're having a party in your backyard, and you lay out 10 trays of smoked haddock and 10 trays of bacon-wrapped scallops, you'll probably find that everybody is going to eat the bacon-wrapped scallops first. Seals are mammals just like we are. They have preferred foods. They prefer oily fish because they're high in energy and high in nutrition. They eat a lot of herring and a lot of mackerel these days because there are more of them, and because everybody has eaten the bacon-wrapped scallops, or in this example everybody has eaten the salmon. If you're a DFO scientist you may look at that backyard barbeque and conclude our guests have modified their behaviour and they no longer like bacon-wrapped scallops, but I believe that you will find if you lay out fresh trays of bacon-wrapped scallops, your guests will change their behaviour back and they'll begin eating what they preferred before. Seals are mammals, and they're no different from that.
That's a point that I appreciate having the time to make. I want to say that we've done a lot of work. We have a tremendous group of people assembled. We've worked on this for years. Some of my colleagues have worked on this since the 1980s. We have a solution that we believe is entirely viable. It's well-reasoned and it's well-researched. We have partners in place in various parts of the world, including across Canada. We have people in many provinces participating in our program.
The decision to move forward with what we're proposing is one that simply requires the courage to do the right thing, because I don't believe that any rational person involved in this discussion of conservation and the protection of species at risk would dispute that actions to restore balance and promote biodiversity are the right thing to do. The challenge is the fear that the public in areas of Canada, which are significant to our country in many respects economically, socially, and democratically, will misinterpret what we're doing. What this takes is the courage on the part of leaders like you who are here today to do the right thing and to help us to do the right thing. I don't want you to feel as leaders that you're going to be left alone to defend what we're proposing to do. We feel that we are responsible just as much as our elected officials and just as much as all Canadians for our actions. We take that very seriously. We have great plans in place to build public awareness to satisfy concerns. We're talking about an inclusive open and transparent process. We would appreciate your support in bringing the topic of our proposal to the cabinet level for discussion, because as the system is set up it's gone likely as far as it can in the DFO bureaucracy. What we need is, and we're counting on, your support to give us a chance to propose this at the cabinet level for approval.
Thank you.