NUNAVUT
"Double think" is being practised by the World Trade Organization and the European Union when it comes to the sealing industry and industrial agriculture, according to Terry Audla, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

Nunavut MP and Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq meets with seal hunters in Whale Cove during a tour of the Kivalliq region earlier this year. Aglukkaq said the federal government will appeal a recent decision by the World Trade Organization to uphold a European Union ban on Canadian seal products. - photo courtesy of Leona Aglukkaq's office

Audla compared the WTO's decision last week to uphold the EU ban on the import and marketing of seal products to the practice of simultaneously propagating two conflicting views, as described by author George Orwell in his dystopian novel, 1984.

The WTO panel determined on Nov. 25 that the ban on seal products instituted by the EU in 2010 does not violate Article 2.2 of the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement "because it fulfils the objective of addressing EU public moral concerns on seal welfare."

The Canadian government immediately announced it plans to appeal the WTO decision.

"This seal hunt is an indigenous people's way of life -- it's Canadian sealers' way of life for thousands of years," said Environment Minister Leona Agglukaq."(The EU ban) treats Canadian sealers unfairly, so our government is going to appeal the decision and stand up for Canadian sealers."

Canada has 60 days to appeal the ruling, and the government plans to file the appeal right away, she added.

"When there was no industry, this was our only industry when the EU ban came into force. A person was able to go out and go seal hunting, provide food for their family and make some money off the seal skin. Overnight, the EU decision put a zero value to that seal skin," she said.

"As an indigenous person, I grew up living off the land and my main source of diet was the seal. So, if we were to reverse the situation and say we are going to take the trade away from beef, how would you feel? For us in the arctic, where there are no farms, where there are no greenhouses, this is going to the root of the indigenous people's way of life and to make a decision on moral grounds to uphold the EU ban – on whose morals?"

Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna spoke with Aglukkaq shortly after the ruling was announced.

“We strongly support the Government of Canada’s decision to pursue an appeal against this misguided ruling,” Taptuna stated in news release. "We feel that the public morality argument is misplaced. Seal populations are abundant and the Canadian seal hunt has been scientifically demonstrated to be humane."

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans values sealing in Nunavut at between $4 and 6 million annually in terms of the food it provides. Prior to the EU ban, the sale of pelts could bring in another $1 million, according to statistics from the department.

Following the 2009 seal ban by the EU, international demand and prices for sealskins plummeted. The Government of Nunavut continues to purchase sealskins from hunters through the Department of Environment’s Fur Pricing Program, though pelt prices remain below pre-2009 levels.

Prices for top grade pelts in 2012 were between $25 and $27 each.

Audla said the EU ban compounds the longstanding damage to the market by the U.S. seal ban, instituted in 1972.

"Prior to that, Inuit communities and villages were healthy. They had a certain vitality about them. They were out hunting their seals as they've always done and were able to sell the pelts at a reasonable price," he said. "But, since (the U.S.) ban, the Inuit have turned to the government for handouts and it's decimated the local economies."

The WTO panel agreed with a complaint issued by Norway and Canada that the ban is discriminatory because exceptions are weighted in favour of indigenous harvests in Greenland, which is part of the EU.

Additionally, without a market for seal products from Newfoundland and Labrador, the demand for Inuit seal products has vanished in Europe.

“The market collapse caused by the EU seal ban has had a major impact on Inuit, and the Inuit exemption to the ban has proven to be ineffective at protecting the market for our sealskins," according to Johnny Mike, Minister of Environment for the GN.

Audla also criticizes the ban because it destroys the international market for seal pelts harvested in the eastern Arctic.

"The WTO decision on upholding the ban is a huge detriment to the Inuit way of life and its rightful, sustainable harvest, not only for consumption purposes, but to be able to sell the pelt at a reasonable price," he said. "Who's to say what you can eat and can't eat and what you can't kill and what you can kill? What's humane, inhumane?"

Audla calls the WTO ruling hypocritical, given the way transnational agribusiness corporations treat cows, pigs and poultry on southern factory farms.

"People ask, 'why don't you find a more humane system?' Well, I shoot the question back: What do you mean? Do we corall them and pen them up and put them behind closed walls? Or do we carry on with the natural cycle of the seal and harvest them in, in my opinion, a more humane manner, which we've always done," he said. "The taking of any livestock, from a living, breathing animal, to it becoming a meal on your table -- people lose sight of the fact that it's still taking that animal's life. The only problem with our sealing is that it's out in the open, in the natural setting and it's red blood on white ice."

If the WTO ruling on the seal ban is upheld following appeal, other industries may follow, Aglukkaq said.

"What's next? Is it going to be the chicken farmers or the beef farmers or the lobster industry or the fishing industry because someone complained on moral grounds: 'you should not be exporting products to this country,'" Aglukkaq said.

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