Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Charlevoix for his question.
I would like to remind him—for he was not a member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans—that this committee has already issued a report on seal management.
We do come back to it over and over; he is perfectly correct. In his region and in the neighbouring riding, people are interested in developing seal processing plants. But in addition to processing the seals, there has to be some effort made by the government to develop markets. We know that there are markets, in Asia for example, but we also know that the American market is closed to us. We shall have to remove the barriers to this market in order to develop processing industries.
Of course, we have a market, but at any one time there is a limit on the market's ability to absorb a product. It is possible to increase quotas, but only if the markets can absorb the product. It is a case of supply and demand. But the federal government, along with the provincial governments, absolutely must make the effort to develop the markets.
In the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, I put this question to officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They spend a few thousand dollars on their efforts to promote all our sea products, not just one product, the seal. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans does not even spend $100,000.
One of the officials told me that other departments, for instance, International Trade and Agriculture were providing funding. But the question I then asked her was, “How much money is the federal government spending on promoting the products we manufacture?” She could not tell me.