Clubbing baby seals is un-Canadian

last updated 8 January 2015

Canada

Sean Twist

“Canadians are hypocrites,” said Sean Twist in the London, Ontario, Free Press. We just love to “pat ourselves on the back” about what wonderful people we are. How peace-loving. How tolerant. How thoroughly nice. We get to bask in our “sniffy superiority” over our violent, gun-toting American neighbors. But then, in a narrow-minded bid to prop up our fishing industry, we go and legalize the brutal clubbing of defenseless baby harp seals. Oh, the government doesn’t phrase it that way, of course. It says the seal hunt is necessary to prevent the overpopulation of seals. “An overpopulation, it seems, meaning ‘any.’” It’s true that fish stocks are declining, but that’s not because of seals. It’s “because of our own greed and short-sightedness in overfishing.” Yet rather than change our unsustainable ways, we slaughter defenseless wildlife. “Who will be next? Will the Canadian navy be instructed to take up whaling? Will orchestrated oil slicks be allowed to cut down on seabird populations?” The seal hunt should stop now. It is “brutal, unforgivable,” and un-Canadian.