Canada vows to take seal ban fight to WTO

Canada vows to take seal ban fight to WTO
Janice Tibbetts, Peter O'Neil and Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, May 5, 2009

International Trade Minister Stockwell Day: 'We'll go to the WTO because it's clear in WTO regulations that if one country wants to ban the products of another, they have to have clear scientific, medically acceptable reasons for doing so, and this EU ban is not based on hard science,' he said in a telephone interview.

A seal hunter carrying a hakapik approaches a seal. The Canadian sealing industry grappled with the loss of a $2.4-million a year market for seal products Tuesday, as the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of a ban across its 27 nations.

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OTTAWA — The federal government has a strong case to launch a World Trade Organization challenge to a European ban on seal products because the decision was based on "people's feelings" rather than hard facts, says Trade Minister Stockwell Day.
"We're moving ahead with an appeal," Day told Canwest News Service on Tuesday, warning that the trade action will proceed unless the European Union Parliament exempts Canada and other countries that he said practise humane and sustainable seal hunting.
"We'll go to the WTO because it's clear in WTO regulations that if one country wants to ban the products of another, it has to have clear scientific, medically acceptable reasons for doing so, and this EU ban is not based on hard science."
The EU Parliament voted 550-49 Tuesday to eliminate seal product imports — such as such as pelts, oil, and meat — a prohibition that would mean a $2.4 million loss for the Canadian industry.
The proposal still must be approved by individual European governments before becoming law and if passed, it could take effect as early as 2010 in the 27 EU nations.
The law would include some exemptions to Inuit communities so they can continue their traditional hunts.
Day said that the vote was based on emotion rather than facts because opponents portray the seal hunt as it was 40 years ago.
But he said that it has changed and Canada deserves an exemption because it follows internationally accepted guidelines. Among other things, Canada no longer allows the clubbing of baby seals while they still have their white coats.
Fisheries Minister Gail Shea defended the government's planned trade action, a challenge that could turn out to be relatively expensive, given that the entire Canadian industry, based on the East Coast, is worth an estimated $7 million.
"When you live in small coastal communities, sometimes there's not many opportunities to make some additional money," she said on Parliament Hill. "We have a number of families who make up to 35 per cent of their annual income from the seal hunt. So yes, I do think it's very important."
Shea described the European Parliament's decision as a "politically motivated" one that was driven by special interest groups who have "spent a lot of money misleading the public in Europe" for decades.
Shea singled out French actress Brigitte Bardot, one of the first of many celebrities to attack the seal hunt. Her high-profile campaign included a 1977 trip to the ice floes off the East Coast, where a famous photograph was taken of her holding a baby seal.
The European Parliament's move pitted sealers against animal-rights groups, who have decried the annual spring seal hunt as barbaric.
"This is a historic moment in the campaign to stop commercial seal hunts around the world," said Rebecca Aldworth, director of the Humane Society International Canada, adding that European parliamentarians who supported the law held up photographs and stuffed seal toys before the vote.
Earle McCurdy, president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union could not contain his anger toward the EU Parliament.
"They are trying to tell us how to live, to pass judgment on how we live with no regards whatsoever for the impact a growing seal population would have on our fish stocks," he said.
Robert Courtney, president of the North of Smokey Fishermen's Association in Nova Scotia, said the government will have to cull the fish-preying seal herd if the ban goes ahead and sealers are no longer motivated to hunt.
Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams called on the Conservative government to retaliate by walking away from a pending trade deal with the European Union being negotiated at a Canada-EU summit in Prague.
"While this vote is certainly a blow to the Canadian sealing industry, it comes at a time when the Government of Canada is very well positioned to deliver a strong message to the European Union," Williams said in a statement.
He also called on Harper to urge EU countries to reject the seal ban.
In the House of Commons, MPs from all parties voted to hold a debate Tuesday night to take note "that the seal hunt is a humane and legitimate economic pursuit, and that the European Parliament's recent decision to ban the importation of seal products is misinformed, inflammatory, counterproductive, and should be rejected."
The Department of Fisheries estimates the seal population in Canada at about 5.6 million. It sets an annual quota for the hunt, which this spring was 280,000. The bulk of the country's 7,000 sealers are based in Newfoundland.