Mr. Chair, I want to thank all of my colleagues for their comments tonight regarding a very important industry on the east coast. I once saw a bumper sticker in Nunavut that read, “Eat seals, 1,000 polar bears can't be wrong”. The reality is the polar bears are absolutely correct. Seal meat is 58% protein. The gelatins, the skins, the pelts, the animal is total utilized. It is harvested humanely, correctly, sustainably and market driven from the waters off our east coast.
Congratulations to Rebecca Aldworth and Paul Watson. They have just destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Atlantic and northern Canadians. I hope they sleep well tonight after they have their pâté. I hope they sleep well tonight after they have their caviar, or their champagne. I hope they sleep well tonight. I hope they have the courage to go to the small outports of Newfoundland and Labrador, to the small communities on the Quebec shore, to Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I hope they go into the homes of those sealers and tell them what they just did, and take food out of the fridge, bread off the table, gas out of the truck, because that is exactly what they have accomplished.
I told the fisheries committee that I was in Washington D.C. and I walked by a store called the Luxe Store. There was a huge poster on the window with the picture of a white coat seal on it. The caption read, “Stop Canada's killing slaughter of seals”. There were cards for people to sign and send off to the Prime Minister of Canada. I brought one of the cards back to the committee. I give the chair of our committee, the hon. member for Saint John, kudos for writing a letter immediately to the company telling it that this was false, that it was wrong and deliberately misleading. I am not sure that he got a response back from the company.
This is what we are arguing against. We have an open air abattoir. How many Europeans have actually gone into an abattoir where veal is being prepared? How many Europeans have gone into an abattoir where, and I forget the name, pâté comes from?