Activists urge Justin Trudeau to phase out Canada's failing seal industry
Source: Guardian
Activists urge Justin Trudeau to phase out Canada's failing seal industry
The government claims the seal-fur industry is lucrative, but protesters argue it costs more to monitor the practice than the hunts generate in revenue
Oliver Milman
Wednesday 9 March 2016 16.46 EST
Justin Trudeau’s government has come under renewed pressure to ban seal hunting after it emerged that Canada is spending far more on monitoring seal hunts than it receives in the export value of seal products.
Documents obtained under freedom of access laws show that Canada spends around $2.5m a year to monitor seal hunts that occur in the remote north-east. By comparison, the 2014 export figure for seal products was just $500,000.
The documents reveal that government officials at Fisheries and Oceans Canada discussed ways to combat campaigns opposed to the seal hunts. The 2009 files suggest that a new strategy was needed to “educate” people of the benefits of the hunt.
Sealers and animal welfare groups have been locked in fierce disagreement over the economic and ethical merits of the seal hunt for decades. But activists hope there can now be a breakthrough with Canada’s new Liberal government, elected in 2015. Prime minister Trudeau was recently lobbied by actor Pamela Anderson to phase out government subsidies that prop up the struggling sealing industry.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/09/canada-seal-hunting-ban-animal-rights-activists-justin-trudeau
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A harp seal walks into a bar. He says "I'll have a Canadian Club on the rocks." 