Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for St. John's West for her question.
A contract has been entered into between Terra Nova Fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador and a Shanghai firm in China. It is a contract that provides for the use of some 50,000 mature, adult harp seals out of a quota of 186,000 from a healthy and growing herd of three million.
The contract utilizes the full seal. It involves the shipment of machinery into Newfoundland and Labrador for semi-processing of the product into pelts, blubber oil, byproducts and oils for finished processing of pharmaceuticals in China.
The project is not dependent upon any one part of the animal. It is not even directed at any one part of the animal. Rather it is a normal processing operation, I remind the House, that flows from a 500-year old tradition. I believe it is good news for Canada.