Firstly, I didn't sign the declaration. That was because of the fact that I'm not, in principle, against population control, if you like, in these circumstances. But particularly, I didn't sign it because we had the opportunity in Brussels not that long ago to meet with the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Mr. Hearn, who made some reasonably good points, I thought, about what we should take into consideration, namely to hear the other side of the argument first. So I preferred to not sign and to come here first and hear the background.
I'm not at all surprised that a majority of members did sign the declaration. The context is one of extreme pressure by organizations, by individuals who care about animal welfare. For example, this is fromThe Scotsman newspaper from only last Saturday. On the front page of a national newspaper of Scotland it says, “From the killing fields of Canada to the shops of Scotland”, and it goes on for two pages to make the whole case against this wickedly cruel seal hunt, as it is called, which, according to this newspaper, is mainly for the purpose of providing a decoration for sporran making in Scotland.
That's the context.
There were hundreds of e-mails that I'm sure we all received from people in connection with this written declaration. They weren't headed: “Please sign to stop the import of seal products to the EU”; they were headed: “Please sign to stop this unacceptably cruel seal hunt”. I think there was a context of that sort of pressure on the part of many well-meaning individuals.
But we look forward to having detailed discussion here tomorrow, and then in Newfoundland, just to see to what extent the information that we were given by those against the hunt was accurate.