Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill S-208, An Act respecting National Seal Products Day.
This bill is important in its purpose, in affirming the traditions and the heritage of peoples, especially our first nations peoples who inhabit Canadian coastal communities and seek to preserve a way of life and identity. If we examine the fabric of the identity of these people, we will find, interwoven in that fabric, the hard work and enterprising spirit, and many threads of tradition and culture that bring colour and distinction to their identity, and ours too as Canadians.
The bill affords the houses of this Parliament an opportunity to issue respect and stand with our fellow Canadians, the women and men in coastal communities, members of first nations determined to preserve their traditional way of life, to stand with Canadians with pride in the face of those who oppose the utility of the seal.
We need to stand up against those who would deny our fellow Canadians their way of life, those who would deny our fellow Canadians their cultural traditions, and those who would deny our fellow Canadians their identity.
As such, I stand in my place in the House today in support of not only this bill, but of our fellow Canadians who depend on seals the same way others depend on salmon or wheat or vegetables to pay their bills, the same way others depend on trees to feed their families, and the same way many other Canadians rely on our sustainable and natural resources to maintain their ways of life.
Our fellow Canadians deserve our support, and I sincerely hope our Parliament possesses the fortitude to afford this support. Now, more than ever, we must demonstrate solidarity with our fellow Canadians who seek to recover from the ill-conceived European Union ban of seal products in 2009. The EU ban was not based on science and it was not based on principles of sustainability. The EU ban was the result of a high-profile lobby campaign, fuelled by celebrities who took a few hours away from their lavish lives to denigrate and prejudice the lives of our fellow Canadians.
Sadly, their campaign was fed by biased information based on emotion, not science. The lobby campaign succeeded in undermining a sustainable industry based on seal hunts that were an important part of Canada's management of fisheries and oceans. What the EU did not see, through the smoke and mirrors of the celebrity campaigns, was that the Royal Commission of 1986 brought Canada's seal hunt into the 21st century.
The Royal Commission provided a foundation to ensure Canada's seal hunt was sustainable, sustainable for our seal population and sustainable for the complex ecosystems they inhabited. The Royal Commission also precipitated a modernizing of regulations to ensure the hunt would be carried out humanely.
Unfortunately, the EU has not only injured economies in our coastal and first nations communities, the EU's infantile ban has also harmed our oceans. Over time, we have learned that harvesting or not harvesting one species has impacts on other species and indeed the entire ecosystem in which we exist.
One might ask what an MP from the interior of British Columbia would know about seals or seal products. Well, in my former roles dealing with fish and wildlife management, and now as deputy critic for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard, I speak with an understanding of how important it is to manage on an ecosystem basis, managing all species holistically, not just on a species-by-species approach.
In my home province of British Columbia, I have been witness to the reluctance to manage predator species and the devastating impacts this reluctance has had on prey and other species. This reluctance to manage predator species was born from similar campaigns based on emotion and vacant of scientific reason. Much like the campaign that led to the EU ban, these campaigns were supported by foreign funds and blatantly ignored the traditions, cultures and ways of life of our fellow Canadians.
I have also had the honour of travelling to Atlantic Canada for numerous meetings over the past few months, where I connected with many Atlantic Canadians who depend on the ocean for subsistence. The ocean and its bounty are their livelihood.
A fisherman friend from Newfoundland recently relayed to me that there was a time when the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador relied completely on the bounty of the sea, that the island of Newfoundland was founded on fishing and sealing, industries that supported the very survival of the inhabitants of Newfoundland. This was their way of life for hundreds of years, solidifying the importance of sealing in Canada's history as a heritage activity.
It has been over 24 years since the cod moratorium was announced, an announcement that precipitated the largest layoffs in Canada's history.
This fisherman also told me that the sealing industry is without a doubt a crucial element in helping the cod stocks of the northwest Atlantic Ocean recover from the devastating collapse in the 20th century. To ensure that the fisheries in Atlantic Canada will have a future, we need to protect them from an ever-increasing seal population, which is severely limiting their recovery. Population control is an essential tool that is needed to ensure that a balanced ecosystem can exist.
Hunters and fishers are able to harvest seals humanely, and they ought to be able to do that and be supported in this, as it is a means for them to provide for themselves and for others. By passing this bill, we would be helping to restore the way of life that existed in Newfoundland and other coastal communities that has been so drastically impacted.
We would also be building a stronger case for the EU to overturn its ban. By undercutting Canada's seal hunt, the EU ban has undercut an industry that has had an important role in maintaining a delicate balance in our ocean ecosystem.
A reduction in the number of seals being harvested has wreaked havoc on our fisheries. Canada's Atlantic salmon fishery continues to struggle, and we know that predation and a booming seal population is a factor. The same can be said for Canada's northern cod fishery and the snow crab fishery in Atlantic Canada, and the list goes on.
The EU ban has hurt the economies of our coastal and first nations communities, especially in our northern communities. In fact, I recently learned of a correlation between the imposition of the EU ban on seal products and an increase in the suicide rate in Canada's northern communities.
The EU ban has undermined a legitimate industry that was part of a broader system of maintaining a sustainable balance in the ocean food chains and ecosystems. Enough is enough. The European Union may close its market to our seal products and undermine our system, but the European Union and its chaos cannot and will not impinge on the pride and dignity of our fellow Canadians.
I applaud the sponsor of this bill for the fortitude to take on a challenging issue and bring it to the forefront, but I would be remiss if I did not mention a previous and similar bill that was introduced and passed in the previous Parliament. Bill C-501, passed in 2014, recognized National Hunting, Trapping and Fishing Heritage Day. We now have one day of the year that officially recognizes a fundamental part of our Canadian heritage that not only helped build this great nation but continues to provide food and sustenance for people across this land.
Bills S-208 and C-501 have very much in common. Both bills recognize the importance of our Canadian heritage, history, and way of life. Both bills seek respect for those people who make their living from our renewable and sustainable resources of fish, wildlife, and marine species.
If we fail to recognize and defend that which has made us Canadian, we open the door to exterior forces that would erode our identity, forces and voices that would detach Canadians from our heritage, our land, and our oceans and sever our connection to the earth.
The human race evolved by learning how to harvest and utilize the natural resources around us. In doing so, we are now learning that we must manage those natural resources around us in a way that finds balance. The people, including the first nations, who live on the front line of harvesting and who depend on natural resources such as seals understand this balance.