EFL: An attempt to mobilize Canadians against the annual East Coast seal hunt was met with locked doors, catcalls and scattered indifference Tuesday in several cities across the country. Representatives from an assortment of protest groups - about 400 people in all - assembled outside federal offices in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. They called for an end to what they say is the world's largest slaughter of marine mammals. The hunt starts later this month in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. | You remember, this is where Canadians club cute baby seals to death, it used to be in all the papers |
In Halifax, about 30 people unfurled banners, chanted and waved signs outside the empty constituency office of federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan. Letters of protest were slid under locked doors and a signed banner was left crumpled on the carpet after a security guard said the office was closed for March break. snicker
In Toronto, about 150 placard-waving people turned out for a "family friendly" protest in the city's downtown shopping district. A slightly smaller group on Parliament Hill was jeered by a young Inuit woman from Nunavik. She waded into the crowd to tell them the seal hunt is a way of life for her people.
"This is part of our culture," Jessie Mike told the protesters. "When we sell the skins, people get food to be able to survive. We're here to make you aware of our culture." | Don't you know, Jessie? They only respect your culture when it fits their agenda. |
In Vancouver, about 50 protesters marched in a circle outside a Fisheries Department office during the lunch hour. Some chanted, "Shame on Canada", "Bush lied, seals died" and "Stop the seal hunt." Several people were moved to tears as they crowded around a small TV set showing pictures of seals being slaughtered. "It's a brutal, cruel hunt," said Glynis Sherwood, a volunteer with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society from Friday Harbour, Wash.
Tuesday's protests were small and sedate when compared with the raucous heyday of the anti-sealing movement in the 1970s and early '80s. In 1977, the movement reached its peak when sex symbol Brigitte Bardot commanded world attention by cuddling up to young seals on the barren ice floes. | That was back when she was worth cuddling with. |
A few years later, activists were arrested for spraying red dye on more than 200 seals.
By the mid-1980s, the sealskin market collapsed when the European Commission banned products derived from the young harp seals known as whitecoats. Canada responded to the international pressure by banning the commercial hunt for whitecoats in 1987. Despite so many setbacks, the industry roared back to life in the mid-1990s as demand grew for seal fur in Europe's fashion houses. | Ah hah, the Canadians are killing baby seals to cloth their Euro masters! |
Bardot, now in her 70s and walking with a cane, says she is still opposed to the hunt. Earlier this week, she told a Toronto newspaper that Prime Minister Paul Martin and his fisheries minister were "jerks" for allowing more than 300,000 seals to be killed this season.
Instead of Bardot, the anti-sealing protesters are now relying on the faded star power of Richard Dean Anderson - the former star of the TV shows MacGyver and Stargate. Earlier this month, he sailed into Canadian waters aboard the protest ship Farley Mowat, which later sprang a leak and limped into a Newfoundland port. | What, he didn't whip out a roll of duct tape and fix it? |
Those opposed to the commercial hunt, which has been around for more than 250 years, are in the process of rebuilding public support for their cause, a longtime environmentalist admitted Tuesday.
"We don't care if one person shows up or a thousand people show up, as long as we have participation," Paul Watson, president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said during the protest in Halifax. | "We can always fix the tv coverage during post production" |
Protests were also held Tuesday outside several Canadian embassies. In Mexico City, for example, about 30 people carried signs calling for a boycott of Canadian goods. Other placards featured photos of seals underneath the words, Please Don't Kill Me. Barry Crozier, spokesman for the Nova Scotia Humane Society, said "the number doesn't indicate the interest or the sincerity of the people." | "Numbers don't count! Facts don't count! Only feeling really, really sincere matters!" |
He said the point of the Halifax protest was "to indicate that a large percentage of Maritimers, who live by the sea, are against the seal hunt." | "Wether they know it or not!" |
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