Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: Thank you for that question. I am very aware that seals eat fish and I have been quite public on my views on that. It’s why I hosted a Seal Summit in St. John’s last year and brought together Indigenous communities, seal harvesters, fish harvesters, as well as the product developers and marketers to explore how we can actually harvest the sustainable natural resource which is the seal population.

As the senator is probably aware, a cull creates a great risk of having the United States apply the Marine Mammal Protection Act and block imports of our seafood and fish from going into the United States. The U.S. is a very important market for our fish harvesters, so we cannot take measures that risk that market.

What I am doing is encouraging that we develop the seal harvest and product industry. That’s why I joined the seal celebration in Gaspé just a few days ago, where I met with some of the seal harvesters, including a young emerging group of seal harvesters, and enjoyed a seal hamburger in their celebration of the seal harvest.