Fisheries committee  We lost two whales late this summer, and our people went into almost a depression. We felt a very great sorrow for the loss, so I'm not even trying to fathom how we would feel if we lost any more, never mind the whole thing.

Fisheries committee  [Witness speaks in Hul'qumi'num]

Fisheries committee  Well, I think the government should listen to the local people, to the communities that are concerned. It should get the answers from us, get the proper story from us to look after the whale. The habitat destruction has happened in the Salish Sea, I would say almost past the poin

Fisheries committee  They're very much of concern. Victoria as a city may be working on a treatment centre for their sewage disposal this year, but up until now, since the beginning of Victoria, it has been discharged. There's no treatment centre for the sewage disposal. Some other places, such as

Fisheries committee  Maybe I could start it off. Conservation is a primary thought that we have. At this point in time, that's the direction of our thinking. Maybe in a distant past when there was plenty, we wouldn't have hesitated to participate.

Fisheries committee  For us, it—

Fisheries committee  Just for your information, I do commercial fishing. My boys and I have two boats. We fish the whole coast, and it's changed in the last couple of years from where you hardly saw any seals or sea lions to not being able to get away from them. There are numerous sea lions and seals

Fisheries committee  There needs to be a cull. It's a hard decision that somebody has to make, but it looks like there's no other answer.

Fisheries committee  There was, in our time, a comfortable number that we never had to worry about. Was there a decline? It never came into our thinking that there was a decline in the numbers. We don't have accurate, scientific, one, two, three numbers or those kinds of things. We didn't worry about

Fisheries committee  I think some are talking about historical numbers. I'm not quite sure whose history they're thinking about, but we're not getting any closer to the comfort level from our feeling.

Fisheries committee  You might have covered it in terms of the noise, but that's a huge factor. Industries such as whale watching, BC Ferries or the ferry system and tanker traffic, I think should be looked at individually rather than lumped together. In terms of the noise, that's a recommendation.

Fisheries committee  [Witness speaks in Hul'qumi'num] Thank you so much for inviting me to be here. I had a wonderful flight last night and I hope to fly back soon. We're all very concerned about the whale that we're talking about, the southern whale in our waters that we share with the Salish