I have been meaning to write commentary on the recent trade agreement over seal products between China and Canada but felt an added urgency this past weekend. Myself and others travelled down to Buffalo to participate in a fur demo and every single time any of us mentioned that we were from Canada the first question from the mouths of other demonstrators was, “What is going on with the seal hunt?” It was strange to see people who are so close to us geographically identify the issue as a “Canadian” issue and it was the first time that I somehow felt responsibility for a national identity in regards to animal exploitation. In the end though, what I told them and what I will write here is I think a realistic and optimistic view of a brutal industry. Some saw the recent trade agreement in a negative light, I think it’s a marriage that is based upon so many externals that it will be nearly impossible to hold.

First, the trade agreement with China symbolizes that the Canadian Government as well as the Fur/Seal Industry has given up on the hopes of reversing the EU Seal Product Ban. That means two of the worlds largest economies, the United States and the European Union, refuse to deal in seal products. In total this means the market has shrunk, and continues to shrink, considerably.

There is another thing which this deal signals, and that is the move towards “seal meat.” Asian countries currently hold the market for seal meat products and this deal reflects the fact that this industry is now going to have re-sell itself and centre on a less lucrative product. Seal meat markets are considerably lower than fashion markets. Not only has the market completely shrunk, but now the ceiling selling price will come down as well. This means more subsidies, which are already unpopular and it also means trying to peddle a product that the vast majority of Canadians wouldn’t eat. (The Government has been doing press stunts for the last couple of years in order to push seal meat as a delicacy, so far to no avail.)

The deal is also significant in that in further constricts our countries ability to ban/criticize products come back across from China and into Canada. As it pertains to animal enterprise, the first thing that comes to mind is the cat/dog fur trade. Labeling laws have just recently been passed in the United States and there is significant pressure to pass similar laws in Canada. This creates a massive problem. With little to no market we are dependent upon the Chinese market in order to keep the seal hunt on life support, any disruption in trade over animal products be it cat/dog/shark, etc. (or concerns over human rights) will significantly strain our ability to continue that. What does this mean for the Government? It means they have placed their support behind an industry that needs subsidies to survive, an industry that is inherently cruel, an industry that the majority of Canadians oppose, an industry which hinges on our importation of cat and dog fur and an industry that now also must re-invent its “product” with a lower selling point.

For activists what does this mean? All of these externals, as they add up, create more leverage points for those who protest the seal hunt. With such reliance on the Chinese Market, symbolic legislation like the Truth in Labeling, could potentially land the death blow. Although the majority of Canadians oppose the Seal Hunt, a much larger number oppose the sale of cat and dog fur. Speciesism, the ascription of different worth based upon species membership, could ironically be the mirror, which when held up, proves too hideous for Canadians to further tolerate.

Optimism is at a high when Chinese Animal Rights groups are already actively working against this “dump.” An impressive press campaign met the announcement and it illustrates the massive problem for those who are going to have to try to create a demand for this product out of thin air.

Another source of optimism is China’s recent attempts to appear animal-friendly, banning animal circuses and cracking down upon state run zoos. Will China buckle under the same moral outrage that the EU eventually caved to? Typically most would balk at the suggestion that China would listen to animal advocacy groups, however, the ironic timing of these announcements would suggest otherwise.

For those on the ground, if you have a Conservative MP in your riding then please re-double your efforts. Write/Call them and voice your concerns. If they don’t want to enter into a dialogue then start crafting plans to protest their offices and start press campaigns to draw light to this issue. Talk about their unwillingness to listen to their constituency, talk about the trade in cat and dog fur, talk about subsidies. Whatever you do, don’t be silent about the issue! With each move over the past year the Canadian Government has left itself more and more vulnerable in it’s defense of this industry. Keep it up!

xo,
Dylan

I love waking up to good news. These groups will appeal this decision, however, the industry and our Government were treating this as the last hope. It failed.

Judge Marc Jaeger rejected an argument made by the Inuits that the embargo on seal products would cause severe financial damage and raise the risk of suicide among youths in their communities.

“The plaintiffs presented no concrete indication that would justify their fears in this regard,” the judge wrote in his October 25 decision issued in French. His decision can be appealed.

In Brussels, the European Commission said the legislation will now apply “to all, fully and without restriction.”

The EU executive said the plaintiffs’ case was “misguided and clearly inadmissible.”

The latest major news update in regards to the seal hunt ban came from circulating news stories about the Canadian Government spending $75,000 to hire a company to monitor internet support, or lack thereof, for the Canadian Seal Industry. I think it is a safe assumption that there is quite a lot more funds and effort at play here, but I wanted to trace this initial story as it seemed odd that the Government would make this information readily available.

I first saw the story posted through a website Before It’s News and immediately red flags were raised about sources. I tracked the story back to Tiny Green Bubbles, and then eventually back to its source, which is this Peta story entitled, “The Internet’s Seal Slaughter Cheerleaders”

One issue with this story is that none of these sources directly link to the information used and the sensationalist headlines tend to encourage and enforce more fear than warranted. The government, or anyone, trolling public forums and social media is not “spying.” It’s a blatant waste of tax dollars and ultimately an extremely stupid tactic, but at least in this instance it isn’t much else. I think there is cause to be extremely weary of Government support for the Seal/Fur Industry (as well as all animal enterprise), but let’s keep that a healthy fear.

The funniest part of this story was that it made me think back to a pro-seal hunt comment left on our blog a while ago from a poster who I noticed had left numerous other pro-slaughter comments across the internet. From the content I think this person is actually involved in the industry, but at the same time I can’t be sure. The potential that someone paid by the Canadian Government came to this blog to uphold the Seal Hunt is hilarious and absurd to me. If anything this whole release should signal to activists that the Government is not an omnipotent being to be feared, but instead a bumbling bureaucracy inept at understanding the diversity and complexity of the resistance to this industry.

Instead of full commentary, there isn’t much to comment on until the EU High Court rules on the legislation, I am just going to post links and short intro’s. The news surrounding the EU Seal Hunt Ban has died down considerably and most major news sources have dropped off completely. Some notable exceptions below.

Tip of the Iceberg article in the Montreal Gazette on the waste of taxpayers funds in hopes of lobbying the EU on the ban. (A full tally of subsidies, lobbying, press/promotional push against the ban, etc) would be considerably larger.

$178,000 to lobby EU to stop seal ban: Efforts ultimately proved futile

Sporadic sources picked up a story about traditional Scottish sporrans and the seal hunt ban (sporrans are a small pouch worn around the waist so as to hang in front of the kilt as part of men’s Scottish Highland dress.) If you ever want a study in trivial cultural interests being weighted in the extreme against the live of a animal, here is your ticket. (Also, if this is some great fucking cultural orgy, you think they could at least go the extra mile and find out that Eskimo is considered a pejorative term by Inuit peoples.)

Scottish sporran industry rescued by ESKIMOS after lawyers find loophole in EU sealskin ban

Nunavut has symbolically placed a ban on alcohol coming from the EU in response to the ban. This is a piss poor media stunt and seems quite removed from the declarations of victory which were being proclaimed not too long ago.

Nunavut uncorks EU liquor ban

Lastly this piece, “Expensive Failure on Seal Hunt,” in the Edmonton Journal sparked a notable response from two major figures, Senator Mac Harb (the lone Canadian Senator proposing a ban on the seal hunt) and Alan Herscovici, executive vice-president, Fur Council of Canada

Two major points made that Herscovici does not counter and I would argue cannot counter: 1) Why are we spending all of this money on lobbying the EU instead of putting it towards providing economic alternatives for a hunt that is doomed to fail 2) The United States banned the importation of seal products in 1972. We have never challenged that ban. Why has that ban stood and since it has, how can we possibly challenge a new one?

News stories on the EU Seal Hunt Ban have all but dropped off, as there is very little report on until the EU Commission submits its arguments in continuing the ban to the EU High Court (this has a deadline of Sept 7th.) Until then, the ban is still in effect, however, plaintiffs in the appeal are exempt (almost the entire seal/fur industry). What is extremely important to note though is that the hunt for this season is OVER. This is all happening off season and the exemption at this point in time is pointless.

The media that has surrounded this supposed victory is what we should be directing our attention to now, as the Government and the Seal/Fur Industry are very clearly winning the media battle. Only a handful of media sources are including any dissenting opinions from animal rights activists or members of the EU Commission and there are no stories in the mass media which are written with anything close to an angle that is positive or balanced. The Official Government line has been to portray animal rights “people” and the EU ban as “irrational” “emotional” “immoral,” the result of knee jerk reactions to emotionally charged videos and not rational thought. Yes, watching a seal being clubbed is an extremely disturbing sight and should provoke emotion, but there is no possible way that any ground should be given on whether or not the seal hunt is “scientific” “rational” “effecient.” The hunt itself is the one of the most irrational industries in the history of the Canadian economy. Senator Mac Harb, the Liberal Senator who has sponsored legislaiton to end the seal hunt in Senate (to deaf ears) provides a very good perspective of how our government is leveraging this issue for seemingly meaningless reasons, (read the entire speech here, it is worth it)

Government officials attended a one-time seal snack photo op in the parliamentary restaurant. It wasted taxpayers’ money on commissioning studies into a possible $35 million slaughter and incineration of up to 220,000 Sable Island grey seals. It wasted millions of dollars on political and bureaucratic missions to Europe to defend a doomed market. It participated in fashion shows in China in the hope of selling the Chinese more than seal penises.

Those are the kinds of actions the government has taken, embarrassing Canadians at a recent G7 meeting by trying to force-feed seal meat to our international guests. Again, it wasted two valuable years by not providing traditional support to those sealers interested into move into long-term viable opportunities. These public relations stunts did nothing to respond to the needs of Canadians.

The European Union is Canada’s second-largest trading partner. The government is currently negotiating an historic free trade pact that could bring a potential 20 per cent boost to bilateral trade and a GDP gain of up to $12 billion for Canada by 2014. However, the government’s support for the commercial seal hunt is getting in the way of the deal. Let us do the math. The seal hunt brought in less than $1 million last year. What part of $12 billion does this government not understand?

In order to justify its ill-advised measure and its wasting of even more public money, the government is trying to convince us that it can remove the European ban by disputing it before the WTO. And Canadian taxpayers will have to foot the bill of over $10 million for this futile dispute, even though the European Union has every right to ban such products if it so chooses.

The European Union made this decision in accordance with the will of its citizens and because it needed to do so. In view of the care taken by the European Union in drafting the ban, the dispute will definitely fail.

Honourable senators, it is interesting to note that the United States has had a trade ban on products from the commercial seal hunt in place for nearly 40 years — since 1972 — and the government has taken no steps to challenge that ban. No real action was ever taken on the appeal to the World Trade Organization of the similar bans implemented by the Netherlands or Belgium. In my opinion, the government knows these challenges will be dismissed.

Why are we wasting scarce resources lobbying foreign markets, when the majority of the people around the world have sent a clear message that the hunt is an unviable activity?

So why are we making a big deal of this? To make an analogy, it is like a shell game. The current federal Government has no contingency plan in place for the people in these communities, instead of providing one, they are hinging their response on the beat of chest thumping and patriotism to lull these communities into avoiding the fact that the ship is in fact sinking. The hard stance against the EU is supposed to make Canadians look tough, unwilling to budge, and although it bodes well back home for those who hunt (seals or other animals) it does really very little elsewhere. The Seal Hunt will collapse, this Government will say they tried, and the same people who were politically leveraged will be left to fend for themselves. The negative effects of capitalism don’t discriminate between animal species.

Why has the media gotten behind this angle? We have state run media, which doesn’t make one a conspiracy theorist to point out. Also, the Government did a masterful job in creating the news conference which set all of this in play. They organized it in the late afternoon, making European sources unlikely until the next day, and they provided the media with the entire story they needed with their own second hand sources. This is the importance of the very initial stories when news like this breaks and the Canadian Government is well aware. Days after the fact, media outlets were still running stories based entirely off of the initial stories that were run, stories which had no sources from the EU Commission, no hard copy result of the EU High Court ruling from the EU itself, and no mention from animal rights activist (although we unfortunately bought the story whole sale!). Journalists are human beings just like everyone else, they are stressed, they have unreasonable deadlines, and they will jump at the opportunity to run an emotionally charged political piece that is already pre-written for them. The Government wanted us to play catch up on this one. It’s time to catch up.

So what is there to do? Write. Write your local media, write your senators, write your MP’s, and write on your own and share it with friends. Another absurd notion being presented in this media blitz is that the animal rights movement has an endless amount of resources and the Government and this Industry just cannot compete, “It’s a big debate, but we’ve never really been able to get into that debate because animal rights people are so powerful, they have so much money, they get very influential people behind them,” says Ms. Simon, “and they can really turn the pages when they want in their favour.” Hahaha. All of this as we struggle to get one teeny tiny sound byte. I would suggest to Ms. Simon that the beast they are up against is not the animal rights community, but global consciousness, but I don’t think she would “get it.”

One of the best lines I have found in the entire mess of media coverage on this comes from a very pro-hunt piece run in Embassy Mag entitled, “Could Canada have stopped the EU seal ban? Missed opportunities, poor strategies marked the war.” The entire article is a lengthy industry timeline of the opposition from the animal rights movement and is worth the read just for the insight of how the other side views this progression. Although no voice is actually included from the animal rights movement, a political science Professor from Calgary who has followed the Seal Hunt and the EU Ban is presented as the objective observer. Talking about emotional messages, Prof. Donald Barry, in a brief moment begrudgingly acknowledges this is a losing battle, “Besides, says Mr. Barry of the University of Calgary, “you can’t really beat them at their own game because you really can’t beat the visuals. The seal hunt, there’s no way to make it pretty.”

DEAR CANADIAN GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA, YOU REALLY CAN’T BEAT THE VISUALS. THE SEAL HUNT, THERE’S NO WAY TO MAKE IT PRETTY!

THANK YOU,
DYLAN POWELL

This morning brought a much different tone in news coverage of the European Union Seal Hunt Ban. First notable change being a move away from a reliance solely on the Canadian constructed press conference, and instead including EU sources. However, there is still large discrepancy in what is being presented by the media. Right now the story is hinging on two different interpretations of the EU High Court ruling 1) That ALL of the parties involved in the appeal to the EU High Court (basically the entire seal/fur industry) are exempt until the court can rule on the appeal or 2) That the Inuit Tribes involved in claim are exempt from the Ban (THEY ALREADY WERE).

EU Commissioners today repeated that the Ban is in fact in place and will stand, “The commission would like to clarify that the trade ban put in place … still comes into effect today,” Maria Kokkonen, a commission spokeswoman, said in a statement.” Considering the ban still stands, I am likely to believe that the second option is what has really happened here, because otherwise, if the entire fur/seal industry is exempt as applicants, then the ban itself has no one to ban. If what transpired is what I think transpired then this entire story was completely meaningless, as our Government touted the exemption of Inuit Tribes from the ban as a success, even though an exemption ALREADY EXISTED. There is coverage to back this up as well, as The Washington Post ran an article entitled, “EU court exempts Inuit hunters from seal ban.” It is possible that the EU could also be using this opportunity to keep the ban in place, but offer a stay of execution for the industry until after trade talks are over. However, who the ban specifically impacts, outside of Inuit Tribes, is still unclear and any claim of a victory at this point is definitely hollow. A Vancouver Sun article today, entitled “EU Seal Hunt Opponents Confident Ban Will Proceed,” made that point clear,

“The commission believes (the ban) ensures respect for all our international obligations, while at the same time responding to the concerns expressed by EU citizens,” stated a news release from the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission.

“It also ensures that the fundamental economic and social interests of Inuit communities engaged in the hunting of seals as a means to ensure their subsistence are not adversely affected.”

(Keep Reading)

I was hoping to wait until morning and for dust to settle, but I see these news stories being circulated with such ferocity that I think it’s time to start stemming the tide here. Below is what we currently know about the Seal Hunt Ban which is slated to go into effect tomorrow.

The Canadian Government and Inuit tribes protesting the ban held a press conference today announcing a EU High Court decision that suspended implementation of the ban. This we know from the Canadian mass media. But what are the sources?

The source for information from the High Court ruling comes from the Inuit Tribe who was apart of the Press Conference. All news sources covering this issue who cite that ruling, are not citing anything directly from the EU, but instead citing this second hand. This information can be found here on this Reuters piece, “A European court has ordered the suspension of a EU import ban on seal products that was set to begin on Friday, according to a copy of the ruling provided by a Canadian Inuit group.”

Absolutely no mass media source which has covered this story and suggested that the ban is in fact “suspended” or “dropped” actually quotes anyone from the EU. The closest you will find thus far comes from the Globe and Mail and it is a no comment, “A spokesman for the EU in Ottawa declined to comment, saying he had not received an official position on the suspension.” (Keep Reading)