Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today.
My name is Aaju Peter. I was born in Greenland. I went to school in Denmark. I have lived in Iqaluit, Nunavut, since 1981. My ancestors, the Inuit, are the founding people of the circumpolar Arctic, and we are the sole remaining hunting culture in North America.
For more than 5,000 years, sealing has been central to almost every aspect of Inuit life in the Arctic. Inuit hunters still follow the ancient practice of sharing their catch with their families and communities. Because the seal meat is not sold but shared, the hunters depend on their ability to sell the sealskins so that they can keep feeding their families and communities. However, the seal bans in 1983 and 2009 have caused undue hardship and increasing food insecurity in Arctic Canada.
With the EU seal ban, Inuit bear the administrative and financial burden of proving that the hunt and product meet EU criteria. The sale of seal products has not recovered from 2009, mainly due to public perception in Europe that all seal products are illegal and immoral. The role that various Canadian governments, over decades, have played in poorly contesting the growth of the animal rights corporations—based largely in the United States—has resulted in great hardship throughout Canada, but no more than in the Inuit communities. The Inuit communities have been affected gravely.
Food security and high cost of living are both impacted by the EU seal ban. The ban has reduced incomes and reduced local seal meat availability. Everywhere you look in our society, the EU seal ban has had a huge negative impact. As the price for sealskins dropped by 90%, the population of the various seal species has exploded in our waters—over 10 million plus in total—and will have a serious impact on the balance of nature in the ecosystem. An overpopulation is not a healthy population—on the contrary.
To add insult to injury, the WTO states that this ban is acceptable because it protects the morals of European citizens. What they're saying is that our legitimate right to live our culture negatively affects the morals of EU citizens. Their colonial mentality is evident in the so-called exemption for products from Inuit, an extension that exists only if Inuit can prove to them that our products meet their criteria of who is an Inuk, what traditional hunting is and a bunch of other patronizing rules and regulations.
Sadly, it has to be said that for decades, Canada, in its feeble attempts to deal with the sealing issue, has failed to recognize the unique identity of the Inuit community and how the EU bans impacted negatively on the Inuit to a far greater degree than other Canadian communities.
I applaud the fact that the government is tackling the issue of ocean ecosystem management, as it is urgently needed for all of our sakes. However, I would applaud much louder if the Government of Canada would actively and forcefully tackle the stigma placed on the Inuit by the EU and the WTO with the bans they have put in place, and how their rules and regulations are demeaning to our communities.
The dignity of the Inuit demands that the Government of Canada must seriously focus to end these bans that defame the Inuit communities and, for that matter, other Canadian communities.
Thank you for your time and attention.