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eBay [Canada will challenge new European seal ban
05-05-2009 CTV.ca News Staff, Toronto, Canada
Canada will challenge a European Union ban on seal products if it is not given an exemption from the proposed legislation, Trade Minister Stockwell Day said Tuesday. Day said Canada should be exempt from the ban on the grounds that its seal hunt is humane and sustainable.
He also said it could devastate some small Canadian communities that depend on the seal hunt for at least a quarter of their annual income.
The contentious bill, which passed on Tuesday with 550 votes in favour to 49 against, calls commercial seal hunting "inherently inhumane."
All 27-member governments of the European Union are expected to endorse the ban in the coming weeks, which will likely ensure that the restrictions are in place before next year's seal hunt.
The sealing vessel Cathy Erlene, left, is dwarfed by the Marine Atlantic passenger ferry MV Caribou as they make their way through heavy ice as they leave North Sydney, N.S. on Saturday, March 28, 2009. (Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Liberal MP Gerry Byrne said Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to stick up for the country's sealers, who have been dealt a crippling blow by the ban, which may even be illegal.
"The international trade community all agree that this EU ban is illegal," he said in a brief phone interview on Tuesday morning.
"Where was the prime minister three weeks ago?" asked Byrne, referring to when the prime minister attended the most recent G20 meeting in London.
He said the prime minister should have pushed Canada's European colleagues to "denounce the illegal trade action" that will ban the import of Canadian seal products.
The fisheries minister of Newfoundland and Labrador also called on Harper to take action against the seal ban.
Tom Hedderson said the prime minister should make a retraction of the seal ban a condition of trade talks in Prague this week.
Long-time critics of the sealing practice in Canada, however, were pleased to see the bill go through the European Parliament.
Rebecca Aldworth, with the Canadian branch of the Humane Society International, called the bill's passage a "tremendous victory."
Inuit communities from Canada and Greenland are exempted in the bill but they still cannot engage in large-scale trading of seal products in Europe.
Another exemption allows for "small-scale hunts" to control the seal population.
But Inuit groups are still concerned how the ban may affect their livelihood.
Joshua Kango, who heads the Nunavut-based Amarok hunters and trappers association said the ban "is definitely going to impact the lives of the Inuit in the very near future."
"We don't have any other way to survive economically," he told The Associated Press.
Russia, China and Norway will also be affected by the ban but the Canadian industry, the largest in the world, is expected to be hit the hardest.
Canada and Norway have said they will contest the ban before the World Trade Organization.
Ottawa estimates that the ban will cost some 6,000 sealers in Canada about half of their annual $13 million in revenue.
Already, this year's commercial seal hunt was very quiet as harp seal pelt prices have dropped significantly over the last three years.
Only 306 sealing enterprises from Newfoundland and Labrador took part in this year's hunt, compared with 977 last year, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans confirmed.
"For the Newfoundland and Labrador sealers, the seal hunt this year has gone very slowly compared to other years," Larry Yetman, a resource management officer with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, told The Canadian Press.
"We're not surprised. We understood that prices were going to be very low before the season started and that led us to believe that the numbers of sealers participating would be low."
(Bron: http://toronto.ctv.ca/)
(Bron foto: CTV Toronto)
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