Marketing of Seal ProductsCanada vs. EUCase - DS400

Brad Gessell, Brian Cook, Dan Allen,Josh McDonald, Justin Anderson, Sean Sullivan

What is the problem?

European Union has banned seal products EU claims inhumane harvest

Sealing is well managed and humane The seal industry is sustainable

Premature ban hurts Canada’s industry

EU ban violates WTO regulations

Presentation Overview

History and factsRealities behind EU argumentsEU practicesImpact on Canadian culture and industriesWTO violationsSummary and solutions

ECONOMIC HISTORY

Canada has a population of 6.9 million harp seals

2010 TAC (total allowable catch) is 330,000 seals

5,000-6,000 individuals derive income from sealing

Sealers state their income from sealing can represent 25-35 percent of their total annual income

In 2006, the seal harvest generated $33 million (Statistics gathered from the DFO)

Canadian Trade Minister

“We’re moving ahead with an appeal. We’ll go to the WTO because it’s clear in WTO regulations that if one country wants to ban the products of another, it has to have clear scientific, medically acceptable reasons for doing so, and this EU ban is not based on hard science.”

Stockwell Day

Arguments of the EU

The EU contests that the seal hunt is an “inherently inhumane and barbaric” practice

The hunts are hurting and diminishing seal populations

Contingencies within the ban will allow culling and maintaining seal populations to reasonable numbers

Europeans simply refuse to purchase seal products

The Reality

Seal hunt inhumane?EU ban is based primarily on cruelty to animals, and

their arguments are based largely on emotion, speculation, and bias rather than scientific evidence

Techniques which Canada closely regulates and uses are no less inhumane than most common slaughter house methods Electricity, percussion, asphyxiation, shooting, and severing

blood vessels to cause hemorrhagingIf seal hunting is inhumane then so is fishing and

slaughtering cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep

The Reality

Hunts devastating seal populations?Population is the largest it has ever been in

Canada

Current seal population estimated at 6.9 million, a population that has tripled in size since the 1970’s after government regulation took effect

Seal hunt is closely monitored by government, and the practice is an economically sustainable activity

The Reality

Contingencies within ban allow for culling of herds but for non-commercial reasons?

Overpopulation stresses seal herds which will still need to be culled. Creates a burden on Canadian government and taxpayers

Seals will still be culled and hunted but can’t be sold commercially within the EU which leads to a waste of resources, as products that can’t be sold will simply be burned or left to rot

Growing seal populations negatively impact fish populations through consumption and the spread of “cod worm”

The Reality

Europeans don’t want seal products?Supply and demand should dictate the seal

trade. Before the ban, one-third of the world’s trade in seal products passed through EU countries

The loss of trade will cost both countriesThe seal ban is nothing more than selective

discrimination seeded by biased media and activist groups

Discrimination

“Sentient beings that can experience pain, distress [and] fear.”

STEAK AND SAUSAGE

Why is it okay to kill cute cows & harmless pigs?

Because they taste so good!

Inuit hunters hurt by EU ban

“A lot of sealers are losing their livelihoods, it's taken a lot away from me,” said Inuit sealer Roger Flowers.Flowers invited those who think the seal hunt is cruel to join him in a hunt, “If they wanted to know more, some of them should come up and go seal hunting with me. They'd really see what's going on.”

“. . .we must contend with animal rights extremists who fundamentally do not respect our way of life, and who use disinformation to further their cause at our expense.”

-Aqqaluk Lynge, President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council

Challenging Tradition

Inuit leaders take stand against EU

Mary Simon

"Inuit have been hunting seals and sustaining themselves for food, clothing, and trade for many generations. No objective and fair minded person can conclude that seals are under genuine conservation threat or that Inuit hunting activities are less humane than those practiced by hunting communities all over the world, including hunters in Europe. It is bitterly ironic that the EU, which seems entirely at home with promoting massive levels of agri-business and the raising and slaughtering of animals in highly industrialized conditions, seeks to preach some kind of selective elevated morality to Inuit. At best this is cultural bias, although it could be described in even harsher terms. It should also be more than a little disturbing to all the citizens of the EU that, despite advance warning by their own lawyers, its EU lawmakers registered no inhibitions about adopting laws that are legally defective.”

-Mary Simon, National Inuit Leader

Article 2.1 of TBT Agreement

“Members shall ensure that in respect of technical regulations, products imported from the territory of any Member shall be accorded treatment no less favorable than that accorded to like products of national origin and to like products originating in any other country.”

Article XI:1 of the GATT

“No prohibitions or restrictions other than duties, taxes, or other charges, whether made effective through quotas, import or export licenses or other measures, shall be instituted or maintained by any contracting party on the importation of any product of the territory of any other contracting party or on the exportation or sale for export of any product destined for the territory of any other contracting party.”

Summary and Solutions

EU has no basis for seal product ban Greater efforts for compromise should have been

taken before imposing ban Canada has complied with past requests through the

Marine Mammal Regulations

EU should negotiate humane sealing regulations

Lift ban once Canada complies with EU seal harvest regulations

References

http://www.itk.ca/media-centre/media-releases/inuit-sue-european-union-eu-overturn-seal-product-import-ban-defending-i

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/06/22/inuit-seal-labrador-622.html

http://www.fisherycrisis.com/seals/sealsncod.htm http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23577468/ http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-phoque/myth-eng.htm http://euobserver.com/9/29803 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/05/eu-bans-seal-imports-

take_n_196637.html http://www.cbc.ca/money/moneytalks/2009/05/michael-hlinka-eu-ban-on-seal-

products-outrageous.html REGULATION (EC) No 1007/2009 of the European Parliament http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/index-eng.htm http://ictsd.org/i/news/biores/46659/ http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e.htm http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_01_e.htm