Fisheries committee  Bill C-555 is specifically focused on non-licensed observers. I think there is an opportunity to craft another set of legislation that would go where the industry sees it needing to go. This is a first step that certainly has opened a dialogue and a mechanism for the sector and o

Fisheries committee  Well, obviously the recommendation of the Senate standing committee was to cull 70,000 grey seals four years ago. Without having the benefit of further science, I'm sure that number of 70,000 is now outdated and needs to be much higher as the population has grown. I think we need

Fisheries committee  No, we don't think the bill itself goes far enough as it's currently drafted. We think it's a great starting point. It has opened a debate and a discussion around what we need to do as a sector, what we need to do as a nation, and what we need to do as a group of nations. Canada

Fisheries committee  This is from people who have the local knowledge and a historical context to understand the interactions of seals and fish. We need more science. Additionally, there are problems now in the north with the ringed seal. The harp seal is a far more aggressive and more competitive s

Fisheries committee  That would be the overall feeling of the industry, the sector, and it's also supported by some science from DFO, where we think we can do more work to help quantify and qualify the actual impacts.

Fisheries committee  For the harp seal, it's currently estimated to be 7.4 million. Grey seals are currently estimated to be in excess of 500,000. Comparatively, in 1980 the harp seal population estimate was about two million, and for the grey seal it was at about 30,000. The interesting thing is t

Fisheries committee  On the books there were about 13,000 licensed hunters last year. We expect that there will be a correction in the figure, because this year everybody who wants to renew their fishing licence has to have participated in the humane harvesting and handling training courses that are

Fisheries committee  The way we see it, it's an opportunity to have the regulations be robust and reflect future potential action by any group, or even for our own monitoring. It's clear that the ice floes and the waters are actually the workplace of our sealers, and within Canadian law, people are e

Fisheries committee  Ten metres is the current restricted distance that a licensed observer can approach sealing activity. That distance is safe neither for the hunters nor for the observers themselves, or for the enforcement staff that are responsible to regulate. Recently there was a story posted

Fisheries committee  Most definitely.

Fisheries committee  I think it's clear that the populations have expanded—exploded, nearly—since the early 1980s when there was a conservation concern related to seals and seal populations. In the United States right now for the grey seal, the word out of the fishing sector in the United States is t

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to appear before you to address Bill C-555. I am here representing the Seals and Sealing Network, which is a national non-profit organization promoting sustainable and wise use principles. The ne