Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for providing some comfort, some reinforcement to what we have known for generations to be a fully sustainable, humane practice that has been conducted in compliance with World Trade Organization rules and requirements.
I will ask the minister the following question, and it is a very direct one. It has been suggested that to raise the issue of the seal hunt and what we consider to be an illegal trade ban by the European Union in the context of the current Canada-European Union free trade talks would be to poison the well and would not be helpful to our cause. As has been suggested by a very renowned and thoughtful commentator, why did the European Union do it, then? They are the ones engaged in this illegal trade action at the dawn of a new era in Canada-EU trade, yet they are the ones who decided to invoke an illegal trade ban at this particular point in time.
How can we as Canadians have confidence that these talks are occurring in a good faith environment when it is the European Union that has decided to poison the well? They chose to poison the well and embark upon an illegal trade activity at the very moment we were asking for more rules-based trade.