Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here today, speaking on Bill C-555, an act respecting the marine mammal regulations, introduced by my hon. colleague from West Nova. Originally, the member for Cardigan was going to speak on this, but he is stuck in a snowstorm blizzard in P.E.I. He is shovelling snow, and he has sealskin cap on as he is doing it. He would love to be here, but I am taking his place.
I would like to thank my hon. colleague for introducing this bill. He is well aware that I and the Liberal Party of Canada will be fully supportive of the Canadian seal hunt and the sealing industry. It is an industry that is so important to so many rural and coastal communities in our country.
The nature of the bill is to increase the safety of all those who are involved in the seal fishery, whether they are the fishers, the observers, or the enforcement officers. The safety of all those involved in the seal hunt must always be the top priority. We have to do everything we can to help those involved in the seal fishery industry and to keep it secure.
We know that, here in Canada, we practise a sustainable and humane seal fishery. In fact, it is one of the best run and monitored seal fisheries in the entire world. The Canadian seal hunt is a tradition that provides so much value to so many rural, northern, and Atlantic coastal communities.
We have to do everything we can to make sure that everyone involved is safe and secure when they are carrying out their livelihoods. The seal hunt on our shores dates back thousands of years and to this day remains such an important part of our history, culture, and economy of communities right across Atlantic Canada, in Quebec, and in the north, as an hon. member mentioned.
Over those thousands of years, many have lost their lives out there, hunting seals. It is usually in the spring, when people are quite far out on the ice. One of the books that I read left a big impression on me. It is called Death On The Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster Of 1914. It is a true story about the Newfoundland and Labradorian men and their sons who were out. They used to go out on the ships and they would be sent out to get the seals. All of the ships got lost, and they were out on the ice in a storm overnight. Many perished during the couple of nights out there, hunting seals.
As I said, many families in rural and remote communities make between $20,000 and $30,000 a year or less. When they can make between $2,000 and $5,000 more for seals, it is big for their families, especially in these rural areas where there is no other income, and especially during that time of year, March and April.
In addition to the economic and cultural importance of the seal industry, seals provide a wide variety of great products, including meat, pelts, and oil, which is very high in omega-3 fatty acids.
Seals are the biggest consumers of fish. They are very competitive, and with the population explosion that we have seen, they are competing with our commercial fishermen for fish in the water. When I go out on the boat with my friends off of Bird Islands in Cape Breton, I can see all of the seals there. They are really cleaning up on the fish.
My friend from Cape Breton, Robert Courtney, is a sealer. He and some of his buddies from Neil's Harbour in northern Cape Breton go sealing. It is a short season, so it is a very serious issue. My colleagues know that they are fishermen and getting seals to make a living. Their livelihood is being hurt by the massive population explosion off our coasts. These seals are eating a lot of fish, and a lot of them carry parasites that go into other fish.
There is quite an imbalance out there, so it is a great thing if we can get a livelihood and cull these seals at the same time. This is one of the reasons why we need to ensure the safest possible hunt every year. We need the government to do more to open markets, because we can sell more of these products. It is a healthy product.
There is a lot of talk and activity from wealthy people, these Hollywood celebrities and others, who live thousands of miles away from our communities. They do not realize or understand how we live in these rural communities. They do not understand how much fish the seals are eating. They know nothing about the Canadian seal hunt or the sealing industry. They prey on people who believe the misinformation in their campaigns. They raise money and use their efforts to try to disrupt the seal industry with their pictures and propaganda.
It is hard to believe the kind of misinformation that these people use, and it is hard to believe that they would ever try to stop our seal hunt.
If they were successful in stopping our sustainable and humane seal hunt, where else would they go? They would then move on to maybe the slaughtering of our cows, chickens, or pigs. It would not stop there. They just do not believe in this balance we have with nature and the nutritious products we get from it.
That is why I wish the government would take these well-funded campaigns of misinformation more seriously and do more to combat them to fight the spread of this misinformation. We should never bow to the pressure from other countries or interest groups when it comes to this humane and sustainable practice that provides jobs and food in a traditional way for so many people. That is also why the EU ban on our Canadian seal products, and the recent WTO ruling in its favour, is particularly troubling. The reason given was public morals. It is so unfortunate that the Conservative government left those discussions to the WTO, when it knew very well that this would happen.
Only two short years ago, the Prime Minister and the fisheries minister went on a trip to China. Before they left, the Prime Minister was speaking to The Globe and Mail and said that he was going to open up the large Chinese market to help our sealing industry. We have not seen that market open. We have not seen any amount of seal products going to that Chinese market.
In fact, much more needs to be done to promote all our seafood products in China and Asia. We need to let our Asian customers know about the importance and quality of our Canadian fish and seafood products, including, of course, our seal products. I was in Taiwan last year on a trade mission. It is big market. They love the way we manage our fisheries and how good our product is. It is a big market for us, and we have to be on it all the time, or others will take it.
It is also sad to see that the Conservative government has let down our sealing industry by not fighting harder for it.
People in the fishery struggle every day. It is very hard to be out there with the elements. They have to ship their product far away to markets. It is a struggle every day, and I commend them for going out in the springtime and being on the ice. Springtime in Montreal or Ottawa is quite different from springtime off Newfoundland or Cape Breton. It is all ice. It is cold out there. It is still as dangerous as ever, but they go out there for the seal hunt.
The hunters and fishers do not need these outside forces tormenting them and endangering their lives. It is a hard living, and every dollar counts. That is why the government needs to do more for Canadian sealers and the seal industry.
I think the private member's bill is a good start, and I commend the hon. member for doing that. However, the bill comes down to safety, which is so important. The safety of our sealers and those involved in the seal hunt has to be the number one concern. I believe that this is a good bill that would help increase the safety of all those involved in the hunt.
I would like to thank my hon. colleague once again for introducing the bill. We will truly miss him when he does not come back to the House in the next term.