Fisheries Committee on April 27th, 2023

[Jen Shears]

We have lots of demand from the United States and Europe. We have orders coming in online, because people don't bother to read the.... They might not not bother to read the line below, saying we can't send anything to the States or the EU, but they might be trying to get us to ship it anyway. We have orders that come in maybe every couple of weeks or every month that we need to refund. We reply to them and say, “We're sorry. We can't ship there due to ill-conceived bans.”

We get cruise ships. We're in downtown St. John's, on Water Street, and cruise ships come in with thousands of people at a time. Most of them are Americans, and they flock to the store. They love the product. They love the idea of it. We actually had our staff members take the humane harvesting course so that, even though they're not sealers, they're well-informed on the whole process. The people who visit want to buy it. They want to support local. They want to support renewable products. You ask them, “Where are you from?”, and you just hope they don't say the United States, but you know they're going to say that, and they walk out.

I'd say over the past 12 months, I've had to refund maybe $25,000 to people from the United States. That's not counting the people who would have bought but who read the disclaimer at the bottom and didn't bother placing the order.

The market is there. We have people crying out for it, but we just can't fill the orders.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Briefly, if we could get our seal products exempted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, how big an impact would that have on our markets for seal products?

[Jen Shears]

I don't think it can be quantified, and that's in terms of being astronomical. I think opening up the American market would be a game-changer.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

In terms of the Canadian market, do you think some sort of tax break, an HST holiday or tax credit, on the purchase of pinniped products would help us get some growth in the Canadian market for that product, if the government would support it in that way? What do you think of that?

[Jen Shears]

Absolutely, a tax credit of some sort always helps people purchase things, so yes, I think that would be a wonderful thing that would help us in our local market and get people buying more seal products.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to give my colleague the floor here.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you. That's beyond generous.

My question is for the B.C. Wildlife Federation. Given the decision not to actively manage a large component of the ecosystem when it comes to pinnipeds, are there any other examples in British Columbia right now where a government has basically made an emotional decision not to actively manage apex predators, through hunting or another way, to the detriment of future ungulates or, in this case, fish? What is the damage that is done when these emotionally based decisions are followed through on, which are not rooted in science at all?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I'm going to have to ask for a write-in for the answer. It's gone a little bit over time now.

We'll move on to Mr. Cormier for five minutes or less, please.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Today I will give my time to Mr. Kelloway.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I'm identifying as Mr. Kelloway right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I don't think so, no. You'd have a job to pull that off.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

There you go. Trust me; you don't want to be Mr. Kelloway.

Thank you. That is also generous, Mr. Cormier, through the chair.

I would like to make a comment and then ask a question to Ms. Shears. You mentioned the threats that your family has been under or has experienced. You mentioned that it's unfortunate and racist. Yes, it's wrong. It's vile, and I would argue it's criminal, so I'm sorry you have had to go through that on a regular basis, it seems.

I also want to go a little deeper in terms of your thoughts on the study as it relates to our recommendations, because a lot of great points have been made in relation to looking to access markets, looking at the infrastructure that is needed and looking at how we align coalitions of the willing. We heard today Mr. Hardie mentioning indigenous people in the United States and indigenous people in Canada working together. How do we work that? How do we look at other examples?

Mr. Hardie in particular has mentioned the seals in Norway numerous times and asked many questions about what happened to them. No one seems to know what happened to the seals in Norway. It would have been good to have gone over to Norway to ask that question of locals. We seem to not have the opportunity here to have people come testify. Either there's an unwillingness or there is a worry in doing so.

All that being said, when we look at the recommendations that come down, and when you go to look at this report.... As a business person, as somebody who relies on this to make a living that's part of your culture and who you are, what would you want to see in this recommendation that would catch your interest and eye in terms of getting a foothold and moving forward on this?

[Jen Shears]

I would like to see an acknowledgement of traditional knowledge and of local knowledge. Those things are huge. I would like to see a gap analysis in the current science we have because, if we can show that the science we have isn't relevant, I think that's a lot of it. The science we have isn't really relevant, but the stuff we do have confirms what many of the witnesses are saying. I would like to see an acknowledgement of that.

The ocean and the government, as it's been for many years and as far as the seal hunt goes, have a lot of invertebrates. I think a backbone needs to be grown, frankly, by people—maybe in the past, maybe in the present—because we are letting people dictate how we manage our resources, and they're dictating that based on emotion and based on some other reality. I don't know what reality that is, but it's definitely not the reality on the ground or in the oceans, so I would like an acknowledgement of that. I would like a backbone, and I would like an acknowledgement of what people have been saying for the last 30 years on the ground, because I think there's a lot of value in that.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

That's duly noted. I appreciate the vertebrae example in terms of having backbone and resolve to this. Again, we've heard a lot of great testimony in terms of looking at.... I would just say that there is no one around this table who has ever said the word “cull”. I haven't heard it. No one has talked about it. Some witnesses have talked about it.

We're talking about how we create a harvest that is inclusive of first nations and that focuses on the need to open our markets and how to do that. There's a common willingness here. A lot of times in Ottawa when you turn on CPAC you see a lot of interesting theatrics on all sides, but we need to get this right. It's important not just to the species of fish. We've heard four species are in danger, probably more. We've talked about the inability of people who rely on this as a culture and livelihood and how they're being harassed. We need to turn that around.

I appreciate your efforts and your resolve and your backbone. You talk about backbone in terms of the greater we, but I appreciate your backbone because the way we're going to move forward is not just through government. It's going to be establishing coalitions of industry, fishing unions, academics, other levels of government, first nations governments, and so forth and so on. I really appreciate your opening remarks, but I also appreciate your talking about the fact that we need to acknowledge traditional knowledge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

I want to get to Madam Desbiens and Ms. Barron before we close off.

Madam Desbiens, you have two and a half minutes or less, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We appreciate everyone being here. Unfortunately, I was not able to ask questions of everyone.

Mr. Ned‑Kwilosintun, I would like to hear your thoughts on the space that you think we need to give field knowledge in our study on reestablishing an acceptable pinniped population that would not be harmful to the other resources. Do we need to put more emphasis on field knowledge?

[Murray Ned-Kwilosintun]

I'm not sure I understood your question completely, but I'm going to try. In terms of the space that's required, the first thing I would say and share out with everybody is that first nations have been displaced from the ability to manage for over 150 years in their territories, so “we're renewing our interest” is maybe a good way of trying to describe how we want to move forward in terms of how to manage the resource moving forward.

Conservation has always been important to the nations, of course, and we've had our own ways of managing that historically. This is why we want to find the baseline data for the particular pinnipeds that are in our Lower Fraser region to be able to manage that resource in partnership with others, if others are interested, but we really see the UN declaration and the inherent rights to try to advance that.

I don't know that I answered your question completely, and I apologize for that if I didn't, but if you wanted to provide more clarity on the question I'd give it another shot.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madam Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes or less, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Shears, I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more. You spoke about the business and that you're having to refund sales from the EU and from the U.S. Where are people purchasing your goods—I can't find a better word than that right now—and what does that look like as far as the distribution of sales locally, domestically and internationally is concerned?

[Jen Shears]

When we first opened up the shop in 2012 in St. John's, we knew that Christmas season would be really busy with locals, but my husband and I were asking what we were going to put in the store in the summertime and if we'd have to sell Newfoundland T-shirts or something like that, or CDs. As it turned out, visitors love the products, so we've really benefited from people from Ontario, from Quebec, from British Columbia and from Alberta purchasing things on their holidays, bringing them home, spreading the word and spreading the messaging that we're able to.... I believe firmly that we can start off with positive messaging to influence people. I don't turn my nose up at kicking doors down sometimes when I need to, but positive messaging and working my way into it is the way I like to start.

They have spread the messaging, and they've spread the products around. Then we get online orders and the comments say, “Our friends bought it when they were in Newfoundland and we saw it and liked it so now we're ordering it,” all through the country really.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Is there nowhere outside the country currently?

[Jen Shears]

Not really, no. People from the EU buy it because, I think, as it stands, they can bring items in personally. It's just that we can't ship it as a business, so Europeans have purchased it. Some European parliamentarians purchased seal coats a few years ago when that whole kerfuffle was happening. They brought them back and loved them, but yes, it's mostly in Canada.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I have more questions if there is more time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have 30 seconds.