Paul Watson Challenges John Crosbie on the Seal Slaughter

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Paul Watson Challenges John Crosbie on the Seal

Slaughter

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 15:41:37 -0700

 

 

4/16/2006 11:24:26 AM

Paul Watson Challenges John Crosbie on

the Seal Slaughter

 

Paul Watson Challenges John Crosbie on the Seal

Slaughter

 

 

 

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

 

 

 

John Crosbie, whose family fortune was based on

the slaughter of million of seals wrote a column for

the Toronto Sun this last week-end.

 

 

 

I was scheduled to debate Mr. Crosbie last month

in a forum organized by the CBC and the National Film

Board. Crosbie, the former Conservative Minister of

Fisheries got weak in the knees at the last moment and

cancelled the debate, He obviously did not think he

could win a debate with me, even on his home turf in

Newfoundland.

 

 

 

Now he has written an article entitled Seal Hunt

Helped Us Survive. And you can bet that it did indeed,

at least for one particular Newfoundlander namely

himself. The Crosbies made out like pirates sending

men off to the ice floes, some to die, and some to

return owing the Crosbie family store, others to

return with a few coins in their pocket after a month

on the dangerous ice floes gutting seal pups. You can

also bet that there were no Crosbies out on the ice

doing the dirty work. John himself was privileged to

attend the best private schools in Britain and never

knew a day of want in his life. He certainly never

killed a seal or even saw a seal being killed.

 

 

 

It really is amazing to see multi-millionaires

like Crosbie, and Premier Danny Williams defending the

seal slaughter in the name of survival.

 

 

 

So because he would not debate me, I will reply to

the arguments he poses in this Toronto Sun article:

 

 

 

The Toronto Sun

 

 

 

SEAL HUNT HELPED US TO SURVIVE

 

ST. JOHN'S -- Why do Newfoundlanders so strongly

support the continuation of the seal hunt?

 

Because it made possible our survival as a people.

Because it advanced our economy and helped us overcome

the sometimes harsh and hostile environment in which

we live. Because we honour our forefathers and mothers

who worked so hard and endured so much to establish an

enduring society on our island and in Labrador.

Because we must resist the attempts by groups such as

the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) to

attack and deplore our seal hunt for their own selfish

purposes.

 

Newfoundland is not a have-not province. With oil

deposits offshore, the provincial economy is in the

black. The Crosbie family accounts have always been in

the black. With this newfound wealth, it is time to

put the archaic industries like sealing to rest.

Newfoundlanders do not need sealing to survive today.

They need to address the damage they have done to

their environment – the species they have exterminated

and extirpated. Having destroyed the cod fisheries

thanks in large part to John Crosbie who as Minister

of Fisheries was more interested in fattening the

pockets of his friends in the industry than in

preserving the species. John Crosbie was one of the

primary people responsible for the destruction of the

cod fishery and now he is advocating for the

destruction of the seals.

 

To understand our support for the seal hunt, you

must know a little of our history and culture.

 

I know a great deal about Newfoundland history and

culture, in fact more than most Newfoundlanders do,

and I see nothing in this history or this culture to

justify this continued obscene laughter of seals.

 

Newfoundland was settled because of access to cod

and survived because of the supplement of the spring

seal fishery. No one was ever assisted to migrate to

or settle in Newfoundland, since British Colonial

policy was hostile to settlement in Newfoundland;

favouring a monopoly of the fishery for the fishermen

and merchants of England who sent out fleets of

vessels every spring to fish until fall.

 

What Crosbie neglects to say is that Britain

actually marooned hundreds of convicts in Newfoundland

who were forced to settle Newfoundland by necessity

and not by choice. Those who settled initiated a

policy of genocide against the aboriginal Beothuk

peoples and annihilated them. None exist today. These

same settlers exterminated the walrus, the sea mink,

the Newfoundland wolf, the Labrador duck and the white

bear.

 

In Newfoundland settlement was discouraged by the

" mother country " from 1633 onwards, with those who did

being harassed and forced to leave their homes and

fishery premises. Those who moved to settle in Halifax

had their travel paid and their living expenses as

well for their first year of living in Halifax!

 

And don’t forget that those who settled forced the

Beothuk Indian to leave their homes and hunting

grounds and they did not get to move to Halifax – they

were exterminated!

 

No one could obtain secure title to land in

Newfoundland until the early years of the 20th

century. Until 1904, almost half of our coast was

known as the French Shore, with the French having the

right to settle and fish. Even when the French shore

was eliminated, France still retained the islands of

St. Pierre and Miquelon, less than 10 miles from the

south coast of Newfoundland, creating difficulties and

disruption in the fishery.

 

And the French have been able to live on these

islands without slaughtering seals, two tiny islands

of European sophistication within sight of the culture

of slaughter on the big island of Newfoundland.

 

We have not forgotten that when Sir Robert Bond,

then prime minister of Newfoundland, negotiated a free

trade treaty with U.S. secretary of state James Blaine

in 1891, the treaty was vetoed by Britain at the

urging of Canada, which feared the damage this might

do to Canadian trade with the U.S.

 

The Free Trade Treaty negotiated by Crosbie’s

Conservative government in Canada with the United

States was not so great for Canada. Britain probably

did Newfoundland a favor by vetoing the agreement in

1891.

 

However, it may have been a good thing because if

such a free trade agreement had been forged between

Newfoundland and the United States in 1891, this could

have led to Newfoundland becoming a State of the

United States and if that had occurred there would be

no seal hunt in Newfoundland today because of the

Marine Mammal Protection Act passed in 1972. All of

the seals would be protected by law.

 

These memories encourage us to support the seal

fishery despite what the urban population of North

America or Europe may think.

 

Crosbie admits that Newfoundlanders are encouraged

to support the slaughter not from need but from

“romantic” memories of archaic activities that were

not so romantic at the time.

 

However the people in Europe and the rest of North

American have every right to oppose savagery and they

are within their rights to use economic pressure to

force an end to barbaric cruelty and ecological

destruction.

 

The seal hunt today is not the seal hunt of our

historic memory. The days of sailing vessels,

wooden-wall steamers and steel vessels are over. The

hunt that remains is conducted by small inshore

vessels of 65 feet or less which no longer are

permitted to take " whitecoat " or " baby " seals (since

1987).

 

The seals killed are baby seals. A harp seal does

not cease to be a baby seal after 14 days. A seal pup

that cannot swim and is defenseless to escape the

clubs is not an adult no matter how Crosbie tries to

spin it. A baby seal is a baby seals. The number of

seals being killed annually now exceeds historic kill

levels.

 

We believe that the present hunt is closely and

carefully managed and as humane as a hunting operation

on vast and dangerous ice floes can be.

 

Just because Crosbie and Newfoundlanders believe

that the seal slaughter is humane and well managed

does not make it true. How can a hunt be well managed

when every year the quota is grossly exceeded? How can

the hunt be humane when hundreds of cases of cruelty

have been documented? As Joseph Goebbels once said,

“if you tell a lie often enough it will become the

truth.”

 

To say that a baby seal is not a baby seal does

not make it the truth.

 

The seal hunt is, as is the cod fishery, a proud

background to this province's present survival and

improving economy, with our latest struggle for

prosperity the ongoing battle with the federal

government over revenues from and the right to manage

and regulate the development of oil and gas off our

shores -- all of which we brought into Confederation

in 1949.

 

Newfoundland since joining Confederation with

Canada in 1949 has been a taking province and a

financial burden to the rest of the nation. They were

the welfare family out on the East coast, always

complaining and never satisfied. They had a choice in

1949 to remain a colony of Britain. Go independent,

join the States or join Canada. They chose Canada

primarily because of the baby bonus. Canada would

actually pay them to have babies. That is why every

Newfoundlander like every other Canadian receives a

monthly cheque for every child they have. The day the

family allowance or baby bonus cheque arrives also

happens to be the biggest business day of the month

for pubs, bars and liquor stores especially in

Newfoundland.

 

Mainlanders should not forget that it was the

killing of beaver and the fur trade that enabled

Canada to be opened up and created the wealth that

resulted in such cities as Quebec and Montreal.

 

Absolutely true John and that was a travesty that

I deplore and I oppose the trapping of beaver today.

In fact freeing beavers from traps was my first

experience in activism way back in 1961 in New

Brunswick. Fortunately the scope of the trapping in

beaver has been much diminished and beaver enjoy a

great deal of protection thanks to people like Grey

Owl and Farley Mowat and others. You have the oil now

so leave the seals alone.

 

No wonder the 19th century anti-confederation song

in Newfoundland warned:

 

With our face turned to Britain

 

Our back to the Gulf,

 

Come near at your peril, Canadian wolf!

 

I should think so John. After Newfoundlanders

exterminated the Newfoundland wolf any wolf would be

cautious about returning to Newfoundland. At least the

wolf survives in the other provinces.

 

 

 

Paul Watson was raised in a small New Brunswick

fishing village, the eldest of seven children in a

poor single mother family that did not depend upon

killing to survive. Unlike John Crosbie he did not

attend private schools and worked and paid for his own

education.

 

 

 

 

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