Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this motion was inspired by our outrage over the blitz of advertising the last week of November from animal rights fanatics. These fanatics are obsessed with protecting the beautiful, trusting harp seals, as they describe them. Mr. Speaker, they have no sensitivity to the devastating effects their campaigns have and
are having on the Inuit seal hunters of the Northwest Territories and Canada, and the fur industry in general.
Those of us who live here have seen annual revenues for the Northwest Territories fur industry plummet from over $6 million in the 1978-79 financial year to about $2 million last year. With this decline in the price and then the very market for furs and particularly seal skins, we have observed in our communities a corresponding increase in dependence on welfare and a corresponding increase in other undesirable effects, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, family violence and even suicide. These zealots have attacked a key element of the very identity of our constituents.
The vicious advocates of animal rights and animal welfare are unaware of, or uncaring of the consequences of their misinformed campaigns on our human constituents. It is the animal rights advocates who are inhumane, not the hunters.
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It is the hunters who are the threatened species, not the seals. Mr. Speaker, those of us who travel the waters of the Arctic, and there are many in this Legislature, know full well that harp seals are more abundant and far-reaching than ever before. For these fanatics to pretend that the harp seal population is not out of control, is absurd. For them to oppose responsible attempts to manage the herd is irresponsible.
Mr. Speaker, the International Fund for Animal Welfare advertisements suggest that harp seals do not eat cod and they site federal fishery studies. I have learned that the scientific basis for this assertion is very questionable. These studies were based on a limited study of seals in shallow inshore areas only. It is bad enough that these animal rights advocates blindly pursue their misbegotten cause. It is outrageous that they buttress their case with questionable science.
Mr. Speaker, much good work has been done by Members of this Assembly, previous Members, both Ministers and ordinary Members, by civil servants such as Jim Bourque, and by dedicated northern residents such as Cindy Gilday, to fight this vicious campaign in Europe. Indigenous Survival International, whose formation was spearheaded by people from the Northwest Territories, and I know Mr. Kakfwi was instrumental when he was president of Dene Nation in providing support to this organization, has been a key vehicle in this struggle since its establishment in 1984. Our government has provided annual support to I.S.I., and it has supported other initiatives of I.S.I., such as the "living Arctic" display in the British Museum in London, and it has made progress.
Initially, I.S.I. was well supported by the Government of Canada through a five-year program initiated in 1987 by D.I.A.N.D., called the Fur Industry Defence Program. Funding was in the order of $1 million per year. Now, Mr. Speaker, just as we are facing a new onslaught of high-priced, slick and vicious propaganda here in Canada and in Europe, we learn to our horror that funding for the Fur Industry Defence Program ended last March and core funding to I.S.I., both these sources from the Government of Canada, is to be cut in March, 1993.
It is critical that this funding be restored. Canada is the third largest producer of wild fur in the world. Ninety-five per cent of all Canadian wild fur is exported and about 75 per cent ends up in the European community, either directly or indirectly. As we speak, animal rights groups are actively lobbying to have 13 wild fur species in the European community trap regulations, all of which our people in the Northwest Territories depend on for their living as trappers, included in C.I.T.E.S. Regulations as endangered species, even though we know these species are not endangered in Canada. Right now, animal rights activists are lobbying for marine mammal legislation to prevent the harvest of marine mammals on which the Inuit depend.
If funding is restored to the Fur Industry Defence Program, support can continue to be given to the European Bureau for Conservation and Development. This is the only non-profit organization which is a lobby for sustainable development at the European Parliament. This is the only non-profit organization which advocates the harvesting of renewable resources. Mr. Speaker, it is critical that this funding be restored. I urge all honourable Members to support this motion and I will call for a recorded vote, confident in the knowledge that there will be strong support from this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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