The Canadian government will challenge a proposed European ban on sealing products which would result in "a very serious blow to the industry," International Trade Minister Stockwell Day said Tuesday.

The EU ban will likely become law by the end of June, at which point, Ottawa will quickly respond with an appeal to the World Trade Organization, Day told reporters in Prague Tuesday, where he's attending free trade talks with European leaders.

The contentious bill, which passed on Tuesday with 550 votes in favour to 49 against, calls commercial seal hunting "inherently inhumane."

"We plan to do that, because the vote is not based on the fact Canada follows international guidelines and best practices regarding the seal hunt," Day said.

Day added that Canada should be exempt from the ban on the grounds that the seal hunt in Atlantic Canada is humane and sustainable.

He also said the proposed ban could devastate small Canadian communities on the east coast that depend on the seal hunt for at least a quarter of their annual income.

"If you're one of the 6,000 families who are being affected, you would call it disastrous, and that's what it is," said Day.

More here: http://tinyurl.com/cchbay
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As a friend of animals and nature I side with the EU! We don't need the fur!!

That Canada's killing practices are humane is a political sham! There is nothing humane about clubbing a help- and defenseless baby animal of the wild. I know it is common practice in the chicken and veal business, but for heavens sake we don't need the baby seals' fur and meat. If those poor families have nothing else to do, then create something more decent for them. Get out of Afghanistan and use the money here at home where it is needed by CANADIANS!!!

only because they have big brown eyes and are all cute and cuddly, not like ugly alligators...6 week old chickens, ya shove a an electrical probe down their throat and zap'm no problem...force feed geese in france so you can give them engorged livers, no problem....slaughter cattle for Kosher meat by sliting their throats and then ripping out their windpipes, hanging them by a meathook upside down until they die an agonizingly slow death, but that's ok...baby cows, sheep, pigs hey that's all good as no one sees the butchering when it's behind closed doors....there's nothing cute and cuddly about a 1,000 steer aparently, the hyprocrisy is APALLING....

are you willing to give up your leather coat, car interior, shoes, belts, bags because some poor animal has to give up it's skin for your comfort or fashion sense...are willing to become a vegan, if you're not I want to object to your eating meat....lets find something else for all those cattle, pork, poultry and fish producers to do as well, glad to hear you're willing to pay for their new job creation!

ok, ok... calm down, wyly. Let's not dump the baby with the bath water! Are you a vegetarian? Wear no leather shoes, coats or belts?

Most Canadians are carnivores, but hardly anyone eats seal meat and very few wear seal coats nowadays. It's an export business mainly and as long as there is a demand we have people willing to fill the orders. Stop the demand and the business has to invent other commodities or close down.

Does the world have to feel sorry for a rich nation's poor people? NO, they don't!

sympathy for cute animals hits a sore spot with me...the seals are animals no more deserving than any other of sympathy...these seals are humanly harvested, more so than many others, our country has protected them from over harvesting so well they are now the second largest concentration/herd of mammals on the planet... mean while Norway and Iceland still persists with a very inhumane harvest of endangered whales, France continues a brutal treatment of geese, Spain slowly tortures bulls in an arena and calls it entertainment...

and there is a market for seal fur just as there is one for leather, this ban has ended that not the lack of sales, seal meat is not threat to the seals survival and a ligitimate source of protien, EU fishing fleets have completely and often illegally depleted our east coast fishery they have no remorse over those cute little fish they're exterminating, hey we wouldn't want them to not have jobs right?...the cute-n-cuddly animal activitist organizations deliberately and repeatedly misrepresented the hunt, continually showing white coats being slaughtered when that was stopped long ago...

luckily for the EU I'm not the PM, we have spineless bucktoothed Harper who talks tough with Russians who have no idea what he's going on about...if it was me there would be a series of retaliatory sanctions on EU products...

I feel better getting that out...now I need another vacation in europe so I can kick a few of my cousins in the arse...

Animal cruelty goes on all across the globe, but that shouldn't be a reason to slow down on the baby seal hunt.
Sure, go kick your cousins in the butt, see what they might tell you.

so why should we give up the seal hunt, the hunt is as humane a kill as any you'll see in any Canadian slaughterhouse... and why do use the term "baby" as if these were humans, these are a harvestable resource just as any other animal...

I guess you are one of those tough neo-conservatives who can't understand that there are people in the world who find this cruel... I'm one of those! Now run along and help the seal hunters.

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Farewell my beautiful Gracie Baby:
15th Jan 1997- 18 Jul 2009

Mak's Blog - Updated 12/3/10

and everything you eat or wear was treated so humanely in death?...bleeding heart hypocrisy, go pay a visit to a local abattoir and report back how humane animals are treated in Oz...then give up your leather belts, handbags and shoes, what no cry for the ban on barbaric killing of "baby" cows? "baby" sheep

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...233223911.html

__________________
Farewell my beautiful Gracie Baby:
15th Jan 1997- 18 Jul 2009

Mak's Blog - Updated 12/3/10