Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you for inviting me to take part in your work.
My name is Gil Thériault and I am director of the Intra-Quebec Sealers Association. I first became involved in this in 1992, which gives me some hindsight and a long-term view of the seal issue. I didn't prepare a big speech. I listened to the presentations made earlier, and several things caught my attention. I'll try to name a few of them in the few minutes of speaking time I have left.
First, it's important to know that we don't have a seal industry in Canada, we have seal industries. Certainly the Indigenous peoples have theirs, as do Quebec, the Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador. We have at least four zones with their own realities and challenges. So it's very important that we take that into account when discussing this issue.
One of the big problems is that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans won't admit that we may have too many seals. I don't know how many times I've been in meetings with scientists from the department. They said it wasn't true, that we didn't have too many seals, much like we didn't have too many lobsters. Those scientists use a species-by-species approach. The important thing for them is that we have more and more. However, it is possible to have too many geese, too many foxes, too many moose and too many deer, for example, in any given ecosystem. Earlier, we were wondering if the department was possibly minimizing this issue. In my opinion, it definitely is. The species-by-species approach to the precautionary principle is a thing of the past. It's as backward-looking as the anthropocentric approach. Today, we absolutely must get behind the ecosystem approach, and there seems to be quite a bit of resistance to that in the department.
Right now, with respect to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, I've heard that four species of fish were endangered, which is absolutely not true. That was the case several years ago, but many more than that are endangered now. Atlantic cod, American plaice, witch flounder, yellowtail, white hake, winter skate, mackerel and herring. In a few years, even more will be endangered species.
The magnitude of the problem, as far as the grey seal here in the Gulf of St. Lawrence goes, is enormous. We're already in the middle of a crisis, and we've already waited far too long. I can talk to you later about the issue of seal bait, for example. The situation there reflects the department's total lack of will to address this issue.
Thank you.