Paul Watson Challenges John Crosbie on the Seal
Slaughter
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 15:41:37 -0700
Sent: 4/16/2006 11:24:26 AM
Subject: 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 dont 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 Crosbies
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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