Canada Enraged After European Union Announces a Potential Ban on Imports of Seal Products
According to CNN, the European Union has proposed a ban on importing seal products from countries that kill seals using inhumane methods. Seal products can include their pelts, meat, and oils. While still requiring approval from EU nations, the proposed ban would impose the biggest economic blow and reprimand on Canada, whose citizens sometimes use spiked clubs and guns to kill seals.
This proposed ban is no small deal. Even International Rock God Paul McCartney has publicly stated he is an advocate of the ban, and that Canada’s seal hunt is a “stain” on Canada. He made these remarks several weeks prior to playing at a concert in Canada that took places several days ago. As CNN reports: “Canada’s east coast seal hunt is the largest of its kind in the world, with an average annual kill of about 300,000 harp seals. The Canadian slaughter of some 335,000 seals in 2006 brought in around $25 million (15.7 million euros).”
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Canada’s government has subsequently reacted with anger to the European Union’s proposal, saying that they will impose trade sanctions on the EU if the proposed ban passes muster and becomes law.
The Minister of Fisheries for Canada also griped that the seal hunt is, contrary to false claims, sustainable and humane. This past September, Canada also made a complaint to the World Trade Organization. The Netherlands and Belgium have banned seal products and Canada claims that these bans break trade laws.
The proposal suggests that the European Union will still allow imports of seal products from countries that kill seals swiftly and with as little suffering as possible. Several European Union members kill seals, including Finland, Sweden, and Great Britain. What method the EU will use to assess whether or not seals are being killed inhumanely is unclear (as well as what more specific criteria constitute being inhumane).
There is a bigger problem with this ban though as I see it: the method the European Union suggests they will use to enforce this ban on countries that use cruel hunting methods to kill seals is flawed. CNN writes that “the ban recommends a certificate and labels be provided by countries exporting seal products making clear seal products they trade meet strict EU conditions.”
Hmm… a certificate and label will be needed. Am I the only person that thinks this sounds like a lackluster strategy for ensuring that seals are killed humanely?
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For me this is a good move for the European Union. I believe this can lead to greater preservation of an important specie of the animal kingdom in seals.
I’ve always disliked killing seals and other animals to satisfy human wants.
Save the cute animals! Let’s ignore the constant inhumane practices on the not so cute ones, like chickens, cows, fish, etc.
The blinding hypocrisy makes it hard to focus enough to read sometimes.
Actually, Canada is NOT enraged — the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans is enraged. Most Canadians are opposed to the slaughter of baby harp-seals (all of the seals killed are under 3 months old)and welcome the proposed EU legislation. DFO Minister Loyola Hearn does NOT speak for the majority of Canadian citizens and he never has. He speaks for his department only and for the “sealers” (who are fishermen for most of the year). The DFO’s budget is heavily padded by Canadian taxpayers in order to subsidize the operation of this costly slaughter — the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet.
Jon– I very much so agree with you.
Michelle– It’s a very good point you make. My apologies for not making that distinction clear in the article. Just because my government does something because President Bush says we will does not mean I agree. It’s unfortunate that I and many other people have been trained/brainwashed to think of nations and governments unilaterally acting with all of their citizens agreeing.
how can the Eu tell us how to kill animals?
if i were a true vegan , i would be opposed , but this is only barbaric to those that have not been to a cow ,pib,chicken goat,slaughterhouse. the meat does not grow in styrofoam packets. and slaughter houses usually do not have the floor painted white to express the blood ….mind your own business EU… and maybe stop bullfights before pointing fingers. the atlantic is there for a good reason…to keep the idiots in Europe!!!
i,m joining the EU products boycott.
A growing number of people are not ignoring cruelty to animals that people tend to forget. There are scores of initiatives all around the world to help prevent cruelty to farm animal like cows, chickens and pigs, such as Proposal 4, to be voted on in November in California, which will ban some of the most cruel factory farming practices such as confining chickens and pigs. And EU countries have some of the highest animal welfare standards for farm animals and research animals in the world, though of course there is much room for improvement. So to accuse animal protection and environmental advocates of only caring about “cute” animals is simply not accurate. People in Europe, America, Canada, and even a growing number in Newfoundland, are opposed to the seal hunt because of its well-documented cruelty, the illegal killing methods (hunters skinning seals while still alive) and the impact on the seal population and marine ecosystem, and because of it’s sheer wastefulness. There’s little demand for seal meat so most of it is left on the ice to rot. The slaughter is mainly about the fur, and there’s absolutely no justification for killing animals so that we can wear their fur.
The seal hunt is just one of Canada’s many “stains”- old growth forest logging and Canadian mining companies’ exploitation of third world countries are some of the others- but should be one of the easiest to put a stop to. A license buy-out plan for the commercial sealers would probably cost the government less than the money Canada is loosing because of boycotts from the rest of the world.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/sealhunt/ I recommend reading this.