The EU banned the import of Canadian seal products, in an attempt to stop the cruel practice of seal hunting.
About bleeping time, I say. We can thank Brussels for making a decision that our own spineless politicians were unwilling to make.
Yes, it means the loss of income for some who made a (part-time) living from hunting seals. I am not against them but what can I say? Should we also reinstate the death penalty just so that we don’t end up with unemployed executioners?
There is also a concern that stopping the seal hunt would threaten already depleted fish stocks, as seals that would otherwise be hunted will eat millions of tons of fish. Inflated numbers aside, there may be some truth in that… but again, chances are humans eat a lot more fish than seals do, so if we’re really concerned about the future of fish stocks, perhaps it’s time to fish a little less and not treat the oceans as an undepletable source.
Now if only our politicians were smart enough to move on and not spend millions of taxpayer dollars (more than the entire industry is worth) to fight this eminently reasonable and humane European decision… Those millions would be much better spent on the battle to block American efforts to export a Draconian copyright law to our country, a fight in which the latest round was fired recently when the Obama government put Canada on the same blacklist of copyright violators that contains Russia and China. All because we’re unwilling to give Mickey Mouse a 99 year copyright and put kids on jail for sharing music online.