Two RCMP officers point out to Darryl Mathews, who opposes the seal hunt, that he needs a permit to protest on Parliament Hill.
Liberal Senator Mac Harb will continue to pressure the government to ban the seal hunt in Canada, despite the failure of his recent proposal in the Senate. Harb says he feels Canadians are on his side.
“The seal hunt can definitely not be supported by Canadians, because of the way they kill the seals. It’s just not ethical,” says Harb.
Last year, Harb failed to get another senator to second his proposal. This month, his move to introduce legislation, was seconded by Tory Senator Lowell Murray, but other senators voted not to discuss it further.
“Senator Murray wanted to give Harb a chance to get it up for discussion,” says Hélène Proulx, Murray’s executive assistant.
“During the Senate debate, Senator Murray made it clear that he has seen, in various houses of parliament, situations similar to what we are facing today and that he has never seen it happen that a member of Parliament didn’t get a seconder for a motion, however much the seconder might disagree with the motion. Therefore, Senator Murray decided to second Harb’s motion.”
Harb says he is going to reintroduce it in another session.
However, fellow Senator Celine Hervieux Payette says the seal hunt is “ethical and civilized.”
“We have to remove a certain number of seals to control it. They live for 25 years and there are just not enough predators. If you want to talk about ethics, it is more ethical to try to get a balance.”
Hervieux Payette says she wants people to remember that Canada was founded by the people who now rely on the seal hunt.
“Some of them were here before the Europeans came,” says Hervieux Payette. “If you compare the seal hunt in Canada to the seal hunt in Alaska, ours is much more civilized. We don’t just throw it away, we actually do something with it, by using the skin and the fat of the seals.”
But Harb says there aren’t many people who rely on the seal hunt.
“The Parliament is united in its support of the so-called thousands of coastal Canadian sealers who rely on the seal hunt for their livelihood, but there aren’t thousands of them. The government is wrong. The seal hunt is expensive and the communities who actually rely on the hunt are small ones. We should start building an alternative industry for these small but vital communities.”