Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the committee for this invitation to appear.

This is my second time before the heritage committee with a bill. The first was almost identical to this bill, the former Parliament BillC-465, which is now C-501. What a pleasure it is for me to be here, Mr. Chair, to talk to you about Bill C-501 and my reasons for choosing this particular subject as my private member's bill.

I'll begin by saying that I looked for a bill that meant something to this country, that meant something to me personally, and that crossed the breadth and width and length of this great country. Hunting, trapping, and fishing are more than pastimes, they are the way that the first people who inhabited our continent—our aboriginal brothers and sisters—basically lived, because they had subsistence living.

This bill encompasses all of that, right up until modern day, and I hope I can go into it a little bit further with you later on.

As I explained, the first people who were engaged in hunting, trapping, and fishing were our aboriginal brothers and sisters. When the first western Europeans came to this country, one of the first experiences they had was explained.... I think if you look back, or I can remember in my history classes seeing prints and etchings of when John Cabot first came to North America in 1497. I can vividly remember a print of John Cabot's men lowering a bucket over the side of a boat and scooping up quantities of cod. Of course, we've mismanaged that pretty well as a society, and we're doing our best. But I think the western European's first experiences in North America had to do with fishing.

I could give you a quote but, having grown up in the Upper Ottawa Valley, I'll skip right along to my favourite person, Samuel de Champlain, who is credited with many of the discoveries along the Ottawa River and its tributaries. In many of his journals he describes—and this goes back to the 1600s—how he and his men would not have survived had it not been for some of the wildlife that the aboriginal communities along the way, primarily the Algonquins, provided, giving them some meat and some sustenance.

My grandfather, Narcisse Viens, who came from Aylmer but who worked in northern Ontario both as a filer in the sawmill and a trapper, related to me some of the ways that the first nations were able to take various bits of bark...I can remember as a child my grandfather sending us, during flu season, little packets from what he called the local shaman up in northern Ontario. And none of us got the flu that was going around because of this terrible-tasting tea that was made by fellow trappers he knew from some of the reserves in northern Ontario.

Of course we know that Cartier, in 1534, described his experiences in trading fur with aboriginals. It is from that, that our country was actually founded, and it was the fur trade that began not only the trade with our aboriginal brothers and sisters, but actually the exploration of our country through the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company.

One of the impacts that we have in our country now—and I'm going to cut right to the heart of the whole reason that I brought this bill forward—is, the reason we continue to have an abundance of wildlife in our country...and that goes directly to the people engaged in the occupations of hunting, trapping, and fishing.

Just as an addendum, because you may know we are talking about free trade, here is a little item that I picked up in doing some research: one of Ontario's top items in dollar value that we trade with South Korea is farmed mink. Most people don't know that.

Hunting, trapping, and fishing account for approximately $10 billion a year in commercial value. Fishing alone is somewhere...you're going to have a witness here later from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters who will have the numbers at his fingertips. He's a man I know fairly well. If you take a look at commercial fishing in this country, you'll find that as a contribution to our gross domestic product, it is slightly under $2 billion yet angling accounts for approximately $7 to $8 billion per year toward the gross domestic product in our country. That doesn't include trapping, which is on the rise.

Just before Christmas I sat with a group of trappers who formed their own company. Their business in the last three to four years has increased some 200%, much of it with China, some in North America, a little in Europe. They said that, Montreal being one of the centres of our fur processors, they tan the hides or the furs. They process them to where they're ready to be made into clothing. Some of it is sent to China and then shipped back here. Some of it is sold there. But he said the Chinese prefer the jackets that are sewn in Canada. So we see a growing population looking at our fur industry which accounts for, off the top of my head, I think $200 to $400 million a year.

One of the other major reasons we have an abundance of wildlife in Canada is the organizations hunters and fishers belong to. I'll list a few. I belong to an organization that has reintroduced elk into the province of Ontario, and we have what is called a “limited draw hunt”. The other organization is called the Quinte Elk Restoration Committee. It's an offshoot of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which is North American. It rehabilitates mainly in the United States, but as an offshoot of rehabilitating certain areas, we've begun bringing them back to their natural state in Canada. There the elk tend to do very well. I also belong to Safari Club International. It consists primarily of hunters who go around the world and hunt species in developing countries. This assists those countries in preserving those rare animals. So does Delta Waterfowl. I'm also a member of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. Their conservation efforts in the province of Ontario are world class. Many others are responsible for the conservation and maintenance of our wildlife species, not only fish. I've also been engaged with the reintroduction of Atlantic salmon into Lake Ontario.

In my riding, there's a creek near the town of Cobourg called Cobourg Creek. When the first farmers from Great Britain came here, some of the letters that were written to England said you could walk across Cobourg Creek on the backs of the salmon at certain times of the year. We know what happened to the Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario. For various reasons, both overfishing and pollution, they became extinct. Then salmon were introduced, unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned. This is an argument in the outdoors world I come from. There's an argument as to whether it's good or bad but most of the salmon in Lake Ontario are Pacific salmon species. They do well because of the temperature of the water and they're resistant to certain chemicals.

But there's an organization of which the OFAH is a partner, and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. It was actually started by a company called Banrock wines from Australia. Their corporate policy is that no matter what country they go into, they're engaged in a conservation effort. So they've teamed up with a group and we're now reintroducing Atlantic salmon into the Great Lakes, and we hope that's very successful.

So I've just given you a taste of some of the reasons why this bill is important to me. I believe it's important to Canada, and I believe it's important to every region in Canada, including our aboriginal brothers and sisters.

Mr. Chair, I'm more than anxious to answer any questions the committee may have.

Rick Norlock

Transcript

Discussions (0)