It is time for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the seal hunters from Newfoundland to admit defeat. No one wants their bloody seal products.
Despite attempts to make it seem the European Union ban on the import of Canadian seal products was a terrible mistake because the facts were not understood, European protests against the seal hunt date back 50 years. The ban was a long time coming and it will never be reversed.
A great deal of money is being spent trying to convince the EU the ban should be lifted. As a Canadian taxpayer, I hate when money is spent foolishly. I also hate when money is spent playing the “regional politics” game. It does not matter which party is in power, they all pander to the sealers in a pathetic attempt to impress voters from Newfoundland and Labrador.
With the current right wing majority government, Canadians can expect 4 years of cuts to social programs that will make life harder for the working poor, but a staggering sum of money has been spent on the EU appeal that is bound to fail….and so it should. Sealing has no place in this century.
It would be more cost-effective to buy-out every sealer than to waste money on ridiculous, posturing junkets that attempt to find new and emerging markets for seal products. A recent folly starred the former Canadian Minister of Fisheries, Gail Shea, travelling to China in a futile attempt to broker a deal. There was fanfare and much ado with the announcement of a deal with China. As it turns out, it was much ado about nothing. There never was any deal, there never will be any deal, and once again, Canadian taxpayers were deceived. It pains me to say it, but the sealers were also duped. They were given hope their antiquated profession, if you can call it a profession, would be revived.
A government spokesperson from the Province of Prince Edward Island said, “The Chinese will eat anything”. Aside from being a cruel, barbaric practice, seal meat has significant problems with respect to meeting the basic standards that would be required in order to sell seal meat internationally for human consumption. Seals are killed in an environment void of the processes necessary to ensure food safety. The Chinese have clearly indicated they will NOT “eat anything”, nor is it likely anyone else will acquire a taste for seal flipper pie.
There are so few people in Newfoundland who are involved in the seal hunt. It is a micro-industry so why the fuss? There is no money to be made. The job of any leader is to define reality and it is time Prime Minster Harper admitted defeat. The sealing industry in Canada is dead.
For the Oceans,
Janice
Janice Oceans (on Facebook)
@janice_oceans (on Twitter)
There is nothing wrong with standing up for the TRUTH
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wrong with confronting LIARS, CHEATERS and MANIPULATORS.
Nothing wrong with facing down BLACKMAILERS.
Recently 101 Animal Rights Euro MP's signed a letter that they would not ratify the Canadian European Trade Agreement unless Canada withdrew its World Trade Organisation Dispute with Europe on the Seal ban, that's blackmail to me.
In one of the recitals for the bill they added a paragraph to a Conclusion of the European Food Safety Authority's report on sealing that is simply not in the report. The paragraph came from the Animal Rights organisation IFAW and is actually incorrect. It might have been a simple error, but they have done nothing in the eleven months since I pointed it out, to acknowledge or correct the error, so that's lying.