I understand that under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, the federal minister has to take into consideration the knowledge and input from the communities in assessing anything to do with oceans and waters and management of seals, for instance. I'm not part of that, because I'm not employed by and I'm not part of the hunters and trappers organizations that would give their input.
What I do know is that a traditional Inuit saying is that an overpopulation is not a healthy population. When the animal rights groups went out to save the seals, they thought that if we didn't kill or harvest the seals, that would be a good thing. But as we are seeing now, in 2023, we have an overpopulation, and we know that is not good for us.
Over the years since 1981, when we would go sailing down Frobisher Bay—a 250-kilometre-long bay—we used to be able to see maybe harp seals here and there, a very minor herd. Today, the minute you go out in the bay and try to sail over, you have herds and pods of harp seals all over the place.
As we have heard, the ringed seals that we depend on for our food are intimidated. They travel singularly, and a herd of harp seals is vicious, so it makes it even harder for us to harvest our food.