THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 2, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 9:04 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on Canada’s seal populations and their effect on Canada’s fisheries.
Senator Bev Busson (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, I call this meeting to order.
Good morning, my name is Bev Busson, senator from British Columbia, and I have the pleasure of chairing this meeting today. We are conducting a meeting on the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
Before we begin, I would like to take a few minutes for members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Ravalia: Senator Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia, representing Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Petten: Iris Petten, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Francis: Brian Francis from Epekwitk, or Prince Edward Island.
Senator C. Deacon: Colin Deacon, Nova Scotia.
The Deputy Chair: I will introduce our esteemed colleague Senator Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
On October 4, 2022, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was authorized to examine and report on Canada’s seal populations and their effect on Canada’s fisheries.
Today, under this mandate, the committee will be hearing from the following witnesses. The Honourable Céline Hervieux-Payette, former senator; and Maximilien Depontailler, Former Assistant to the Honourable Céline Hervieux-Payette. On behalf of the members of the committee, I want to thank you for being here today. I understand that Madam Hervieux-Payette will be delivering some opening remarks, along with Mr. Depontailler. Following your presentation, the members of the committee will have questions for the witnesses.
Madam Hervieux-Payette, you have the floor.
[Translation]
Hon. Céline Hervieux-Payette, P.C., LL.L., Former Senator, As an Individual: Esteemed senators, dear friends, I was delighted to agree to meet with you to advance a cause very dear to my heart, the international legalization of the seal hunt, all in hopes of finding ways to support this industry, which mainly affects people in our outlying areas — Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and British Columbia — the coastal provinces, in other words.
I appear before you this morning primarily to gain financial support for the industry and to correct the false image created by those who oppose the hunt.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing this subject for your study, for being here to take a closer look at the issue, and for inviting me and my assistant Maximilien Depontailler, who has provided invaluable support to me.
Bravo and thank you to all those participating in your study.
I’d like to get right down to the heart of the matter, then I’ll be available to answer questions.
With respect to the seal hunt, the priority is to have the international tariff barriers lifted, first those of our American neighbours, who certainly represent the most lucrative potential market, then those of the European Union, Mexico and a number of other countries that have consistently banned the sale all types of seal pelts.
This initiative should come from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, with support from Global Affairs Canada. However, the provinces affected by the boycott must actively participate in this effort too, as mainly small communities are directly affected. Rebuilding distribution networks will be essential to take advantage of tourism.
Where did this fierce opposition to seal products come from? The biggest culprit in this campaign is an organization called Humane Society International, whose president earned a modest income of $500,000 a year a decade ago, and who has collected millions from Americans, Canadians and other victims of the campaign of total misinformation on this issue.
Their commercial used footage from the 1980s featuring seal pups, known as whitecoats, who had been killed with a club, and their blood flowed freely on the ice. Celebrities were also featured, like Paul McCartney of the Beatles, who was shown with his wife squatting over freshly killed whitecoats. I must admit, it was quite spectacular. What Humane Society International didn’t say was that Canada had changed its legislation in the 1980s and that practice had been banned for almost 20 years.
Since I was an MP in the House of Commons at the time, I supported the establishment of the Malouf Commission by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The commission’s mandate was to review all practices related to the seal hunt.
From then on, hunting whitecoats was banned outright and significant penalties were adopted. It must be said, however, that Humane Society International’s advertising campaign was totally misleading and in bad faith. I also wrote to the famous French actress Brigitte Bardot, who insulted me because I supported the seal hunt by not being very kind to me in her reply, obviously.
The Internet was still in its infancy, but the international personalities involved in the campaign spread fear through the media. In Europe, they organized marches to denounce the seal hunt in Canada. Our main opponents were animal welfare organizations.
The high point of the campaign, which had a sizable budget behind it, was when the World Trade Organization chose to give in to the blackmail by those fighting the seal hunt and ban it on humanitarian grounds. The commercial aspect of the WTO, an organization devoted to free trade, was completely ignored, despite strong arguments from the Canadian government, which had taken care to include Indigenous Canadians in its delegation, since they would be hit hardest by the ban.
Let’s not forget that the ban is still in effect today in many countries.
My commitment to the cause of seal hunters led me to delve deeper into this commercial activity. I travelled to Newfoundland and Labrador to take a government-organized sealing course taught by veterinarians. Then I joined a Nunavut seal hunting expedition on the ice in Frobisher Bay. Bundled up in special clothing and seal skin boots, I set off on a hunt one day when the sun was low on the horizon. I was out there from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was February 2010. We drove snowmobiles over very uneven ice for almost an hour. They pitched a small tent so we could sit on animal skins from time to time. Our Inuit hunter took his tiny boat out on a bluish sea of ice. The landscape was simply extraordinary.
Then a tiny seal’s head popped up out of the water and the hunter shot the animal with a low-calibre rifle. Once back on land, he carved it up and invited us to eat a piece of its liver. It was the first time I’d tasted raw seal meat. I can’t say that I loved it. Some time later, however, my assistants and I organized a lunch for colleagues and journalists at which seal fillets were served with a red wine sauce. That time, it was a big hit.
Right now, and after you table your report, we must ensure that managing fish stocks, marine animals and seals becomes a priority for the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Diane Lebouthillier, who lives in the famed Magdalen Islands region.
With a view to having this new policy adopted, a national and international advertising campaign should be carried out with communications experts. This could be done in association with a foundation mandated to support the seal hunt. Our Canadian sealers deserve considerable support because they have suffered very serious harm.
In closing, I very much look forward to reading your report, and hope to continue to be part of this collective effort to revamp the seal hunt and help sealers get their livelihood back.
Thank you.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Depontailler, you had some words you wanted to share with us?
[Translation]
Maximilien Depontailler, Former Assistant to the Hon. Céline Hervieux-Payette, As an Individual: Honourable senators, thank you for your invitation. I am sincerely delighted to see that the seal hunt issue, which for years has been a constant concern, challenge and battle for Ms. Hervieux-Payette and myself, remains a subject of concern, analysis and reflection for the committee and the Senate as an institution.
It may appear to be light subject matter at first glance to an outsider and uninformed eye, but underneath it lies profound anguish in communities that live with and make their living from seals, including Indigenous communities. There’s also an underlying sense of injustice and, at times, it has felt like a David in despair, quite alone in his fight against Goliath.
The subject matter also reveals a gem, a way of life, an entrepreneurship in step with its ecosystem that may be a model for the future. I’ll come back to that.
Like Ms. Hervieux-Payette said, as we went along, we became aware of the power of lobby groups intent on closing markets for Canadian seal products to stamp out the hunt, and sadly they were moderately successful in doing that. They claimed to support the antispeciesist philosophy, which makes no distinction between “human animals” and “non-human animals”, as they put it, and they jumped on the vegan and vegetarian bandwagons and latched onto very real environmental issues.
Out of conviction or cynicism, these lobby groups have used seals for communication and fundraising campaigns and to support a political agenda. The politics aimed to use seals to decry the exploitation of animals, the industrialization of anti-life human activity, with human beings as predators in our environment, even though sealing in no way fits that profile.
These lobby groups position themselves as defenders of animal welfare and of the environment, playing on people’s emotions without the basis of real, serious studies, and with a certain idealized vision of nature, a self-regulating nature and a pessimistic view of humankind that recognizes our impact on our ecosystem.
We must also recognize that contemporary human activity is having devastating consequences on biodiversity in general. The truth is that the 2019 UN reports show that 1 million species out of an estimated 8 million in total are on the brink of extinction worldwide. Most of them will die out in the coming decades, and some researchers consider that we have already begun the sixth mass extinction in our planet’s history.
Closer to home, the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report Canada 2020 reveals that populations of species at risk have declined by nearly 60% on average from 1970 to 2016. That includes species at risk, a category that harp seals and grey seals obviously do not fall into.
I don’t know if it’s still the case today, but at the time, the WWF supported seal hunting. It considered the hunt humane and the seal population healthy.
Our unsustainable development model is disconnected from physical reality, planetary limits and impacts on other species with whom we share our planet and their living environment. This has created a breeding ground for the emergence of radicalized groups. In a way, sealers are the collateral damage in this situation.
There is hope, however. We’re now witnessing a paradigm shift when it comes to energy, climate, ecology, technology and perhaps even the economy, driven by the total transformation of our development model. This will perhaps lead us to rethink our values and how we organize our societies.
With this in mind, we can now take a fresh look at our communities, coastal or otherwise, that make their living from seals. We need to look at these sealers. Their entrepreneurship, which plays a triple role — economic, social and environmental — also represents a potential model for the future; in any event, it’s a source of inspiration for 21st-century living.
Thank you.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. I know there are senators lining up to take advantage of your presence here today with questions.
Senator Francis: Senator Hervieux-Payette, in the sponsor’s speech you delivered in the Senate of Canada on February 16, 2016, for Bill S-208, An Act respecting National Seal Products Day, you noted that you were refuting two false statements made by animal rights and vegetarian groups that seals are only killed for their pelts and that there is no market for any other seal products.
In your view, how can false statements about Canada’s seal harvest and the seal products industry be addressed effectively? Does the Government of Canada have a role to play in refuting false statements or disinformation as they pertain to Canada’s seal harvest and seal products industry?
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: Thank you for your question. Yes, there is a role for the Government of Canada. I think the policy should be to move ahead with the framework for a very well-organized operation to go to the seals and exploit them in a decent manner.
However, the big problem is not enough communication to the rest of the people who are not knowledgeable. The fact is that we can use the skin, the fat and the meat. In fact, we can use every part of the animal, so you cannot be more sustainable in the way of using things that our planet is providing us with.
I would say that my trip to Nunavut gave me a good reason — and I met many people — to suggest that we should have a good policy that will be a good framework to encourage people to come and also help them create a network. Because you have to sell these products. I don’t think the people living up north have all the means to transport the mostly finished product. The question of transport is part of the problem, too. It’s there for the food people eat, and it’s there for everything that costs a fortune. So if they don’t get any help — no matter how good a policy you have, you need to have the transportation mechanism or to subsidize these products.
As far as I’m concerned, it should be organized in a framework where the people can deliver to one point in the North or in the Magdalen Islands or in Newfoundland — certain places — and then there would be a takeover of this mechanism to distribute the finished product.
As far as I’m concerned, there is a future, but there are different roles for different players. That’s why I mentioned the municipality and the provinces because the small communities should be the first ones to encourage and work with the hunter and from that moment organize transportation with the province and so on. There are many players in this question. I would say you need somebody who is the chief conductor of that harmony, and the chief conductor should be at the federal level.
I have read the testimony of the former employee of a fishery that appeared before your committee. I think they have the knowledge necessary to be part of it. Where we’re not doing so well at the federal level is with the campaign that will change the state of mind of the people who oppose this. I mean, no matter how they want to be excellent in that, we have seen what the Americans can do with the media. They were destroying a whole culture and a whole business with modern media. Right now, we need to use the same tool to the same extent.
At the end of my presentation, I was talking about a foundation. If I receive a little nudge from you, I may start to look for people who would be ready to create a foundation that would collect the money to do that campaign. The minimum to do a good campaign is $25 million. You can probably go up to $50 million because you don’t address just the public in Canada. We would have to restore the reputation of the seal hunters across the globe, but mostly in the European Union. They are hysterical about this question. The second or third question that the leaders of other countries ask our Prime Minister is about seal hunting. Of course, it’s a bit insulting when you want to discuss things that are of common interest and somebody interferes and talks about seal hunting.
It’s the same thing with the members of the different parliaments. I had so many arguments, but nobody knew what they were talking about. I have respect for people who are elected, and I have respect for people who are fighting some idea, but I have no respect for people who are continuing to lie about the situation that, in fact, is a big handicap for a good part of our population. These are people with modest hopes. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think they want to have a plane or be very rich, but they can make a living, and that’s where I tend to be much more sympathetic.
I will just make a little side remark. We need to have people all over the country. People don’t know that if you want to remain the owner of the land, you have to occupy it. I don’t know of anybody in Toronto and Montréal that would like to move to the coast of Nunavut or to the remote area of Newfoundland where I was a few weeks ago. I mean, it is not the community that people who live in big cities can manage. You have certain people who are happy to conduct that business and at the same time that way of life. I think we owe them the support to really do their jobs, help their families and provide Canada with the support to continue our ownership of the remote territory.
Senator Francis: Thank you for that.
Senator Cordy: Thank you so much. It’s great to see you, Senator Hervieux-Payette and you as well, Mr. Depontailler. Thank you so much for the advocacy you have continued to do during your time in the house and in the Senate and since your retirement. You are definitely an extremely strong advocate, and I think your way of phrasing things in response to Senator Francis was — somebody has to be advocating for the sealers, and that’s extremely important.
Our committee was in Newfoundland and Labrador recently in September. We met with sealers, and we met with those who make seal oil products. We met with people who make clothing and jewellery. The makers of these beautiful articles of clothing said the cruise ships come into St. John’s, but the tourists can’t buy anything. The products are fine in Canada, but the tourists can’t take them into the U.S. nor into many European countries. That’s unfortunate because if we’re looking at providing employment in remote and rural areas, as you referenced earlier, then we have to be aware that hunting seals is a very noble career to have.
Anyway, I’ll get on with my question. Sorry. My question deals with misinformation. You both referred to it. You referred to Paul McCartney and his wife patting a seal pup, which meant that the mother seal would thereafter ignore the pup. Nobody bothered to say that in the paper.
A friend of mine was Minister of Fisheries. His PR person came to him on the first day of the opening of the seal hunt to show a picture on the front page of a Boston newspaper of a bloodied seal with seal blood on the ice. It was an incredible visual except for one thing: The seal hunt had been delayed because of fog in the region. I don’t know where they got the picture, but that was false information. They should have been charged. The minister certainly dealt with it and made phone calls, but that was just a prime area of misinformation.
You spoke about the humane groups. You touched on this in your opening comments. How do we deal with misinformation? That is one of the biggest issues that I reflected on in talking with the sealers. I’ve just noticed so much misinformation in the papers, in the media. They’re easy stories to sell when you show a baby seal.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: We need an organization whose mission is just to ensure that the facts are correct. We don’t have that. I cannot tell you how many interviews I have given. In one day, I had 35 from all over the world. I was just asking them, why are you carrying false information? Why do you do that? What benefit do you have? The answer is that it was sensational, as news usually is, that things are not normal and so on. We assure the people that this is a way of living, that these people are honest people conducting a good activity.
Personally, we are facing something we didn’t have before, which is being on all social media. At that time, it was very limited. We could use it but scarcely. The high number of customers was not there. Now, almost the entire planet can see this media.
We have some entries where we can release the right information. We should use it properly with expert help, and when I say “expert,” I’m not talking of the small agency that can promote a local product. We’re talking about something that has moral content. Not every product has a moral content, but in the case of this activity, they always appeal to the fact that this is killing, as if we don’t kill cows or pigs or any other thing that we eat. If we showed visuals of that daily, several times a day, probably none of us would eat that kind of meat anymore. It’s just that they use one example, and it’s also not touching them because most of the enemies are.
Our biggest victory at the time was to keep Canadians on board because we were very close to having the Canadian population join in and jump on board with this question. Do you remember the percentage who were on board with us? It was over 60%. If you don’t have the support of your own population, it is much harder to make a fight. You would have to convince your own citizens.
In fact, one tool that is not often used is to have Canadians opposing the international community, Canadians being respectful of these people, Canadians defending the seal hunters. Tell me another type of work where Canadians are defending our way of doing things. This is the only one where, anywhere I went, people were saying, “We are behind you.” If we start with that, we have a chance to change things.
The World Trade Organization invoked a humanitarian question and would not grant to Canada the freedom to export and sell that product. This is the most ludicrous answer we have ever heard. It doesn’t have anything to do with that. They have never done that for anything else. They just decided, with the pressure from the big players at this organization, that they should find a way of blocking Canada. Canada did a good job, but we didn’t have a communication strategy strong enough to overcome all the bad press.
Right now, we want to move things. I know you will produce a very articulate and very supportive report, but the problem is if we don’t sell it to Americans, Mexicans, the European Union and so on, we are left with a market without any customers.
That’s why, on this question, I intend to go and meet the minister in charge. I know she will read your report very attentively, and you will have her on board 200%.
We need someone in the cabinet who really is willing to take on the fight. We’ll try to find the people who can organize communication. It has to be very strong. We cannot tell a nice little rosy story. We have to tell the facts, and we have to tell people that they are attacking our native people. All these people are having a little tear. That’s what is happening. I said to myself, “Wait a minute, this is a way of living that is being done in a totally proper manner, and you are cutting off the possibility to have a livelihood in their own territory.”
Canada should have a population all around the country. We should not all live in the big cities. I follow what is going on with the lobster. This year, I thought we sold too many to foreigners, so we had to pay too much in our province. It’s the same thing with the other produce from the sea. But you have not addressed the question of what these seals are eating. I want to know what you think about it.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator C. Deacon: Senator, thank you so much for the passion you bring to this topic, and thank you, Mr. Depontailler.
I want to build on the disinformation issue. The disinformation campaigns are being funded by groups that are able to give out tax receipts, tax receipts enabled by the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA. One big source of funding for the disinformation campaign is, in fact, the federal government. The federal government has granted these organizations the right to issue tax receipts, based on false information, that fund their activities.
I think it’s interesting that the former minister of the CRA is now the fisheries minister. I’m really interested in understanding why we do not have any enforcement of charitable organizations spreading false information that is harming Canada and harming our First Nations. I would think that if anybody had the ability to change that, it would be the minister. Perhaps we need to make some changes to our rules, as they relate to charitable organizations, to enable us to take away their charitable status if they’re spreading false information. Especially in an age of disinformation.
Your comments have been really echoing in my brain since you’ve spoken; that we’re part of the problem. We’ve actually been giving them the money to harm Canadians. Have you looked into that issue at all? Have you any thoughts on that? And, again, I just want to say that I’m really grateful for the passion you have brought to this and that you’ve brought to it for so long.
Thank you.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: I don’t have any recollection that it was a big group of Canadian organizations. We mostly know the American one. When you have a population of 300 million and they are all bleeding hearts, to send a cheque for their cause, it’s more part of the culture that you have across the border.
In Canada, I mean, my experience of having been a Member of Parliament on the other side, is that to get people to write a cheque you need a lot of work. It’s not easy to say to people, if you support a cause, well, we need a cheque. Even people with a lot of money, no, sometimes they don’t support the cause.
Certainly, you’re right, this is something where we could start, but the bulk of the money that was spent in Europe and so on, came from the United States. I would say at least 10 to 1. We can remove the one, like you say, and the minister would certainly find that proper, probably.
Senator C. Deacon: The point being that the activity in those foreign countries is very damaging, but the key is that we have to make changes to how they’re viewing the industry altogether. That’s part of the lobbying campaign you see us having to do in other jurisdictions, more than in Canada, for sure.
You don’t see the money in Canada as being a significant amount of the problem?
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: Well, we have fewer organizations. Just compare the political arenas. Look at how much money the Americans give to the politicians compared to Canada. I would say it’s a 100% different culture. Here we decided in our democratic institution, you should not buy the power, so it’s not played on money. We need some money to have some communication during a campaign, but you don’t buy the election. As far as I am concerned, they are used to writing cheques for the cause that they support.
I was in politics for 30 years. I was collecting money. Most of the women I know don’t like to collect money. Personally, I don’t mind. I was a nun in the former life, probably, so I have no problem asking for money from any of my friends; my success rate is pretty good.
But the question is, you know, we’re talking about big money, and even if we create a foundation, and the foundation would support this cause and so on, it’s not through the individual, it would be through some large corporation or some owner of a large corporation. I put the budget between $25 million and $50 million if we want to be successful and not over 10 years, but a maximum of two years. We have to strike down fast, strong, and don’t leave any door open. Because they don’t give you a chance.
Agreed?
Mr. Depontailler: Agreed.
Senator C. Deacon: I want to really zero in on that, the disinformation campaign. Disinformation is really the issue. It’s those who intentionally mislead, versus those who are misled. We have to stop the intentional misleading, and have the support to try and gain foreign service support in Canada to help us know who to speak to in those jurisdictions as well. Get the jurisdictions onside to understand the harm that is being done — the ecosystem harm, the community harm — on every level.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: We don’t look very civilized, showing that picture that we allow people to hit and hurt. Of course, I am aware that you have seals that weigh over a thousand pounds, and the small one that we hunt in Nunavut, are about that big, even though they are ferocious. They cannot be a pet, because they are very tough. If you approach them, they will want to bite you and you cannot make friends with them.
But as far as I’m concerned, I just say that the disinformation goes as far as not knowing anything about the animals we’re talking about. Not just the hunting.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Petten: I echo the comments made by my colleague: I just love your passion. It’s wonderful.
I’m from the community of Port de Grave. You probably remember a colleague of yours, The Honourable John Efford. He was very passionate about seals, and I’m from that same community.
It’s part of a life being around harvesters, fishing and, of course, we had the opportunity on our trip to Newfoundland to visit the Corino processing facility, in Dildo. It was my first time visiting even though I’ve been involved in the seafood harvesting for my whole career — it was very professional. They were also looking at the seal oil. They look at all of the things that could be utilized with the seal. We also heard from harvesters that were there that day, as part of our discussion around the seal population.
One of the sad things we’re hearing, of course, is a big concern, particularly within the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. How much cod they’re eating and the return of the cod stocks, which you referenced before. Even according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO, they estimated the different seals are eating anywhere between 1.5 and 6.4 kilograms of mixed fish per day. Of course, there are about 12 million seals in the population, which is a lot to be able to manage with the ecosystem that you talked about.
But one of the concerns that we heard is that we’ve gone through the offshore where we had sealing ships that went out. We had all the Elliston disasters; we visited the Elliston sealing monument. Then we went for the bigger boats. Now we are looking at there being not many harvesters who want to go out anymore. Even though we have a population of seals that could be harvested and great economics that could be gained, because of the barriers of the costs — particularly of the insurance as one of the biggest issues — it is not economically feasible for them to want to go out and harvest the products. That is part of the problem we see going forward. Even though this market is developed from some of those small operators who managed to do many things with it, they don’t have enough materials to be able to do what they’ve committed to even with their customers.
That’s a problem. How do we try to incentivize the harvesters to still continue to fish? We have a massive problem, and it’s just festering. It’s been such a long time on the go, it’s almost as if they’ve given up, which is a shame because there is an opportunity here.
I wonder about your comments around that.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: My impression is that at this point in time, we should be in a sprint to make sure that it continues because we are near the end of that activity from this population. My question is what kind of job are they going to, because they won’t be working in other areas. The $100,000 insurance they have to pay for the first damage they suffer to their boat is wiping out everything they do in the year.
Senator Petten: That’s right.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: It doesn’t make sense. That question should be addressed by the minister — how we can protect them and leave them with a deductible that is, I would say, $25,000. They would be able to cope with that. However, if it is more than that, you destroy the industry. You have to address it problem by problem.
The question of the disappearance of cod — I make a point to buy just cod from Canada. Mr. Depontailler knows that. He ate some yesterday. I must say this is something that was addressed, but it’s good to say in the public arena that we have to rebuild our stock. However, when you have a machine that is eating them faster than you can catch them, it’s a problem. The grey seal is especially a problem. They eat tons of fish. The quantity, if you put it all together, is a war that cannot be won if we maintain the status quo. We have to organize the fight under the water — more fair play between the cod and the seal.
In our time, the number of seals that were evaluated — they were doing it by taking pictures from the plane. We were told this was not the most accurate way of doing it, but nowadays, they have better methods to evaluate the population. Was it 8,000 12 years ago? The recent number —
Senator Petten: It’s about [Technical difficulty]. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is estimating 1.5 to 6.4 kilograms of mixed fish per day.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: I would say the cloud over this question with fisheries is that we don’t have an exact measure. First of all, we’re not talking about engineering and never having the right steel, capable of supporting the right weight. We are dealing with organisms that are living — that are on their own — and we don’t control the whole population. We can make an assumption as far as possible of the number of fish and seals, but if it’s minus 5, minus 10 or minus 20, does it make a big difference? We’re talking in terms of thousands when we talk about the number of individuals.
We can control the population with the proper means. At the same time, where does the government go to make sure these people can make it between now and the time when we will restore? They will have to support the industry for a while. You don’t put them in a situation where the government is not able to control the situation. I don’t hold any grudge against them. I just say to myself that it was a very new phenomenon. We had not seen in many other sectors — maybe you did, but I didn’t — that the whole international community would go after a group of individual workers. Now we are going to take measures to restore the truth, give them the possibility and organize from the local to the national level how the product is going to circulate while we are, in fact, opening the doors of other markets.
It’s a big responsibility for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, because you don’t just take one step, you have to take many steps in many places. That’s where I say the provinces should also step in for the local level. We don’t have one person from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in every small town where they collect 50 seals a year — it doesn’t make sense. But at the local level, if these people do well, the local economy will do better.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much for your passion. Just in terms of hindsight, what do you believe were the most significant outcomes or impacts of establishing a National Seal Products Day in Canada, both in terms of the cultural preservation, which you referred to, and economic development?
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: The reason we introduced the concept of having a national day was to say that this is the smallest unit of workers in the country who had their reputation destroyed at the international level. Let’s give them some hope and celebrate one day in May. At the same time, you have to know that it’s the European Maritime Day — the very same day. That was the reason we put it on that date, because we are just counter defensive on this question. I can tell you all the sins of the Europeans on our shores. and the massacre they do in the Mediterranean Sea. As well, there are all the other countries that are contributing to contravening our own law and the distance they can go to collect fish. We are being robbed of our fish by many foreigners. I know we cannot have a Canadian boat next to a foreign boat — we know that. However, these pure people should sometimes be reminded that these people have a right to their own activity. They are not respecting our rights, so for me, it’s a question of being proud of that activity, not putting our head in the sand and saying that we don’t want to hear about that. Rather, we want to celebrate and stand up for them.
Senator Ravalia: Obviously, you have a vision for a global campaign that would target those who have been the source of misinformation and disinformation.
When we look at countries like Iceland and Norway, countries with similar geography, they have somehow managed to control the population of seals. Are there any lessons that we can learn from those jurisdictions to replicate the results in Canada?
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: I will tell you one thing, and maybe then we can talk about Norway. In Denmark, they kill them. They put them in a pile and light it on fire, and so they get rid of them.
This committee studied the grey seals, which are not very exciting in terms of using the skins because they fight so much that they have scars all over their bodies. They are dangerous. They are occupying beaches where people cannot go now.
We must inform people that we have several types of seals. We talk about the small ones, but the big ones are doing a lot of damage. I was on the committee. I supported eliminating 70,000 grey seals that are, in fact, a big nuisance on the shores of the Eastern provinces.
You talk about other countries, and maybe they have some good ideas. You must consider the country size, too, and they may have some sort of control. Maybe you know more about it.
Mr. Depontailler: I don’t know much more, no. You are right that they were killing and throwing away the resource. That is not the way we saw Canada dealing with it.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: We inquired. They don’t have the same number of trouble spots. It’s a very small country. There are many areas where people cannot even go because the shore has no nice beach. Seals cannot climb those rocks. Those countries, you must remember, are outside the European Union.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. I have a question as I am listening to everyone else’s comments. We’re so thankful to have your outstanding experience on the topic.
I want your perspective. We have things like the International Day of the Seal and the issues with the Americans’ and the European Union’s stance on seal products. There always seems to be a pushback if the focus is on the harvest. When we chose this topic, we were hoping that if we focused on the destruction caused by the seal population to the general environment and specifically to the fish stocks on the East Coast, that we might have a better chance to get past this wall of disinformation, or this disinformation war that you so aptly describe it, around the seal hunt.
Do you think we should focus on the ecology and the damage by seals to the ecology? The seal hunt is part of it, of course, and the use of the product is an important part of how this would roll out. Do you think that the ecology might be a more useful approach? I would love to hear what you think about that.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: We should give the whole story. Not only do they eat fish — and most of the time it’s cod — but they are eating crab, lobster, eel. They eat a lot more than just the fish that we like. I don’t forgive them for eating my lobster.
There will likely be some reflection with the ministry because we have many fish farms, especially on the East Coast. I don’t know; maybe the ministry has some information on that. How do they prevent seals from entering those restricted fish areas? The seals could capture fish every five minutes there because the population is very large.
I don’t know; maybe that is a big problem for the people operating fish farms. I worry about fish farms in general. I ask myself if we pay enough attention to the quality of the fish. There are many questions related to the biology of these farms. Of course, I prefer to have wild salmon, but I understand it would be difficult to have it in supermarkets these days.
Every activity in the ocean relates to another activity because it is the same environment. I’m sure quite a few people oppose seals for sale. They know the seals also eat lobsters. In Europe, in Paris, there are weeks where they serve Canadian lobsters and they make a fortune. They sell them at a very high price per pound, I can tell you. So they benefit from some of the products, not thinking that their little seals are eating them as well. The seals do damage other products.
[Translation]
Mr. Depontailler: I think we’re looking to add value to seal products, and rightly so. We can try to diverge and bring value to the type of entrepreneurship these communities engage in — I briefly mentioned it in my opening remarks.
I’ll explain quickly. The world is changing and there’s a growing interest in eating better, securing food sovereignty, eating local, shortening our supply chains and living in step with our ecosystem.
The seal hunting communities appear to check all those boxes. These types of lifestyles are being promoted. International bodies like the World Economic Forum, the OECD and the United Nations are now willing to promote a new set of economic values within our societies. I believe we can try to capitalize on what these communities are and how they work. I believe we city dwellers can reconnect with what they do and find value in the fact that it embodies certain values and criteria that may be those of future societies and that we’d like to see further emerge.
Therefore, we need to add value to seal products and carry out a campaign for them. We must try to counter misinformation campaigns, but we must also diverge and add value to living in a community in touch with its ecosystem that combines economic profitability, environmental sustainability and the social aspect, since communities are supported through this activity.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator C. Deacon: Senator and Mr. Depontailler, I want to really benefit from your advice on the specific steps you see us taking as a committee to help keep your vision moving forward. I mentioned earlier, based on your excellent feedback to my question and assumptions that were incorrect, that there is a role for our diplomatic corps. This requires political leadership, but there is very much a role for our diplomatic corps to work with countries who we think we have the best chance of starting to make some movement on in order to find similar issues, where that country may have a complaint against Canada where there is misinformation, perhaps, causing harm in their country. If we can get Germany to move, for example, it might help us with the whole EU, and Germany has demonstrated a lot of appreciation for our Indigenous cultures at points in time.
It’s being very strategic. We need to identify where we can start to make some headway and what tools we have at our disposal. If we can find out what the rules are for these charitable organizations in their own country, can we start to go after them in their own country — legally — to say, “You’re spreading disinformation, and you’re causing this harm.”
In your experience, what are the individual tools that we could be looking at that would be most effective?
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: Well, I can talk about the ambassadors that I know that are retired and were part of the discussion when it was at a high level at the international level. Most of them were discouraged, because they didn’t have the tools to answer the criticism. People were not thinking that those who are on site should be the first line of correcting all these lies about that.
The second one is that when you are a member of Parliament, and you are travelling abroad with committees and so on, this question came up regularly. I would say that most of the MPs in Europe were 100% or 150% convinced that this was a horror story and that we were criminals.
Talking about Germany, whose reputation is to be people who are knowledgeable, calm and having a reputation of — well, the first thing that the President exchanged with our Prime Minister was the question of the seals. You understand that we’re dealing with one of the strongest countries in Europe, and you start a meeting one-on-one with the President, and the first thing he raises is the question of the seals. Why? Because all the MPs were all in the campaign and were all convinced that they were doing a fabulous disservice to humanity.
I, personally, because I was part of one of the associations dealing with South America, I could not understand why the Mexicans, with whom we had so many exchanges, the Mexicans, with whom I was in communication as president of the organization on a weekly basis, why they would pass a motion against the seal products, and at that time they were part of the free trade agreement.
I have seen zero members of Parliament anywhere I went that were supporting the — even though you would give them all the information, give them all the scientific — send them anything that could influence them. They were almost brainwashed. I said, “They cannot all have no intelligence; there must be a few intelligent ones in that group.” But they were all siding against the seal hunting. So when I’m talking about a campaign, I’m not talking about something small, because we have — the great majority of parliamentarians in all the countries that have banned seals, they think they are doing a great service to humanity. We must start from practically scratch, and we have to climb the ladder of credibility.
I very often used the question of the native people telling them, “You tell us to give a good life to our indigenous peoples, well, this is one activity they’ve been doing for centuries, and you come from an area where you don’t have any natives, and you ask me to cut their way of life. What kind of rationale can you have in this case?”
Just to tell you, it’s a big mountain.
Senator C. Deacon: So interparliamentary groups, diplomatic corps and legal means. We have to use every tool.
Specifically, do you see any others we need to create? I really want to build off our chair’s comments about the fact that we need to attack this from the perspective of the destruction of the ecosystem and the destruction of the entire habitat as a result of disinformation.
I think the strategy is crucial, but I’m really focused on the tools. Are there any other tools that you suggest we should be looking at? It never crossed my mind, but interparliamentary groups are a great suggestion.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: But at the same time, I think the ministry has all the information to prepare something that I would say would tell the truth in a very simple manner and give the information so that we all sing the same song. Because if you meet a parliamentarian in two or three or four countries, we should all carry the same message. At least we could start with two official languages, and we should show some pictures. We should give the figures and give the global picture with regard to the exploitation of the sea, how it’s done, by whom, why and so on and put that in a bigger context.
This should be a tool that the members of Parliament and the senators have in their pocket, so you don’t have to start from scratch, and they will bring that back to their office, because they have some staff.
Actually, yes, I was refuting their arguments. I had the information, but I didn’t have any tools that could give them the reality, at least.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you very much.
Senator Petten: I guess just as a follow-up from that, a thought that occurred to me is, are you concerned that the campaign that you are looking at would keep the negativity going? By continuing with a campaign to look at trying to — with all the misconceptions and all the right information out there, that sometimes when you respond you keep the negativity going. These rights groups, giving them another reason for them to continue with their platform? I wonder about that and your comment on that.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: I think I would leave it to my communications expert. The communication experts use the new media certainly more skillfully than I can. It is usually short, so it can go to more people.
If we are having, after your report, an outline by the minister of all the things that she intends to do and the timeline, but we have to deliver on the information and how things are going to be done by the ministry.
At the same time, you would be sharing that information, and the communication strategy would be to put the context into which all this will be. You won’t release that piece by piece. You will have to have a global approach. The communication should be strongly attached to the policy.
Otherwise, I agree with you. We might raise more questions than we solve. I would say that for a normal human being with a normal IQ, this thing is not that complicated to understand. A normal MP should understand who already lives in Mexico, Berlin or Paris. Who else will give the information if we are not doing it?
We’ll look at how other countries are dealing with their communities, what happened in New Zealand recently that is, of course, dealing with their community. We hear about it here and we have examples to see how it’s not necessarily the same activity, but how it is being dealt with by the population. It seems — didn’t have a very good communication firm as far as I’m concerned.
Mr. Depontailler: There are some positive campaigns that can be made and tools that could be developed.
[Translation]
I’ll come back to what Ms. Hervieux-Payette said in her opening remarks, that we had organized a seal meal in the parliamentary dining room in 2010. It had never been done before. Seal meat had never been seen in the Parliament of Canada. It had a huge international impact and it was a resounding success on the Hill.
When asked if this would continue, the chef of the parliamentary dining room replied that it would depend on demand. If there was a demand for seal meat, in other words if MPs or senators asked for it, he might serve it.
Every institution has its own procurement policy for goods and services. The question is whether procurement will support communities, in this case those that hunt seals, to ensure that this practice receives greater support across the country, not just on Parliament Hill but beyond, by creating the means to encourage people to purchase products from these communities.
We can also work on the communications front by letting people know about the origins of this animal, where it came from and reconnect them to it. I put a lot of stock in that, because we no longer know what we’re buying. We don’t know what we’re eating. We no longer see the animal, we no longer see how it dies. We’ve lost touch with that. I think it’s fundamental to regain that connection if we’re going to dispel the myths these organizations have created and support these communities.
Ms. Hervieux-Payette: I’d like to add something. In the Verdun area of Montreal, some Magdalen Islanders have a restaurant that serves seal. In the Magdalen Islands, there are restaurants that serve seal. In Montreal, people can eat seal anytime in restaurants whose owners come from the Magdalen Islands.
We had an agreement here with the chef of the parliamentary dining room. If we gave him advance notice, he would make sure he had some seal meat. When we had guests visiting from England, we would call the chef. We would ask him to prepare a meal with seal meat. Of course, we didn’t tell our guests. Let me tell you something: I never told the people from England that they were going to eat seal for lunch. I told them after lunch, not before. I think that was the only way to debunk the myth.
[English]
It was delicious and you don’t need a knife when you eat that because when you eat the filet mignon the way it was cooked by the chef was partly in the oven at 150 centigrade for several hours and then it was finished on the top with the sauce, with butter and the wine, and not one complaint whatsoever.
We have to do things that people can see and can benefit. Maybe we could send them to our embassies around the world and on May 27 that they invite people to eat some seal. We’ll send them the recipe at the same time.
The Deputy Chair: I want to thank you both very much. You may have noticed, we’ve kept you a little over time because your information is so outstandingly interesting and helpful to our study and our goal of trying to reverse the world on how seals are portrayed and how we can help the sealing industry and the ecology in general in the realization of what we have as a resource and how it can be used.
I want to thank you again for taking the time and the extra time. As I said, we usually keep it fairly tight, but we’ve so benefited from your expertise and your perspective. Thank you both very much for being here. With that, I’m going to have to gavel out the session. Thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)