Dear American activists:
1. Thanks again for your country's official policy to ban the
importation of Canadian seal products.
2. This policy is being undermined by subterfuge on the part of the
Canadian/Norwegian sealing industries - see below.
I thought you should know, since it is happening right under your
nose.
Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE - www.HOPE-CARE.org)
Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition
Deer Options Enterprise (DOE - www.DeerOptions.com)
ps: Steve Thompson is an anti-sealing activist living in Richmond,
BC.
From Stephen Thompson (Save our seals):
To all my Compadres,
Hope you find the following as interesting as I did.
Excerpt sourced from the following link:
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/fopo/
evidence/ev2505286/fopoev20-e.htm#T0935
(Also attached is the recent Report of the Standing Committee on
Fisheries
and Oceans / Seal "Harvest".)
39th Parliament, 1St Session - Evidence given:
Mr. John Kearley:
"Down through the years, too many times we've gone with facts and
numbers, and as I said, these people are not interested in facts; it's
an
emotional issue. It's the biggest fundraising for these protest groups.
They
have used and still are using the pictures of the whitecoats being
killed,
with the tears running out of their eyes. Of course, we haven't hunted
whitecoat since 1982. That was stopped because of the protest groups. It
had
nothing to do with the market for whitecoats, or anything else; it was a
perception thing.
I think we should be more aggressive. People are being lied to; the
facts distributed by the protest groups are not the actual facts. I
think
the Canadian government should be more in the forefront in dealing with
these protest groups.
For instance, in the United States we've had the Marine Mammal
Protection Act now for a number of years, which put a ban on the
importation
of seal products into the United States; yet the Canadian government has
done little if anything over the years to work on this issue. There's a
huge
market of 300 million people on our doorstep, and we are unable to
access
that market.
Also, there are the problems of logistics that it creates. As a
company,
we have lost product that was accidentally trans-shipped through the
United
States and seized by U.S. Customs. We have to be very careful when we're
shipping product now, so that the shipping line or whatever does not
transship to the United States.
For instance, the main hub of all courier companies in North America
is
most likely in the United States. When we ship samples of our product to
our
parent, we have to disguise the description of what it is, because it
may be
seized by U.S. Customs. We have to disguise what we are shipping. Just
recently I shipped samples of our seal oil for analysis and I termed it
marine oil so that people looking at the document would not know whether
it
was lube oil or whatever. You have to do these things. It's unfortunate
that
we're selling a legal product, yet have to disguise it as something
else.
We haven't presented the "good side" stories of the Canadian seal
harvest; for instance, about seal oil. We haven't put out to the public
the
benefits to cardiovascular health and cholesterol levels, and things
like
this. You can use facts until the cows come home, as they say, but let's
start telling the good side stories of the seal harvest, and not go just
with facts, but go with the emotion that these people work on as well.
It's a very emotional issue for me. I've been involved with the
sealing
industry in Newfoundland now for almost 30 years and I'm very proud of
what
I do, very proud of my company, and very proud of the sealers who
participate in this harvest. It's an emotional issue for me and
emotional
for people like Rene and Wilf. Rene was personally attacked last year.
It's
time that as a government we start to stand up for the citizens of
Canada.
If you talk to sealers and ask them what this harvest means to them,
they go back to the days of their father, when they were children and
the
seal hunt taking place in the spring of the year meant a lot to these
people
in terms of a livelihood. In, as we say, the long, cold, hungry month of
March, when supplies were running low, all of a sudden there was an
opportunity to put extra dollars in their pockets and meat on their
tables.
It's an emotional issue and it should be treated as such."
This time around I have found a Pit-bull within the ranks of NOAA who
is
going to investigate the Carino Company.
Any doubt that the seal slaughter is subsidized by the government of
Canada
can now be buried six feet under.
Proof - report recommendations sourced from the Standing Committee
Report:
The Committee recommends that Canada through the Department of
Fisheries and
Oceans and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
must
immediately commit itself to the goal of removing the trade barriers
within
the MMPA whereby Canadian seal products are prevented from entering the
United States. - In addition, Canada must seriously consider seeking a
review under GATT of the prohibition of the importation of Canadian seal
products into the United States.
I believe the government of Canada is hedging its bet that while our
anti
seal slaughter movement has its sights on Europe we will be so
distracted
that we will take our eye off the U.S. We need to circulate this report
far
and wide in the States and ask U.S. citizens to write to their Senators.
Steve Thompson
Return to Terminate the Canadian Seal Massacre
Since 