To the editor,
Put aside your ignorant thoughts if you care about your fellow Canadians, and I will tell you why I don't want to see Paul McCartney on the Common this summer.
McCartney announced that he is boycotting seal products, and expects others to do the same. He is wrong, and a person is no better than he is, should he or she happen to listen to his poisonous language.
Here's the news flash, and it comes in four points:
1. People need to hunt seals, because seals are over-eating the fish supplies. (You already knew that.)
2. Communities in Canada, most particularly the northern region, depend on the fishing and sealing industries. They hunt seals to help their fishing industry, and what do you know: Seals are useful as well. If you ban seal products, then both industries in these communities will die, and therefore, these communities will die. You are killing communities in your own country. You are valuing animals more than your fellow countryman.
A lady from Nunavut was in Ottawa defending the seal hunt, and was interviewed on CBC. She even talked about the struggles that anti-sealing would cause to the communities in Nunavut, because of their dependency on the sealing and fishing industries.
3. The way that they "hurt" these animals is barbaric. If you think so, then you are amateur historians. Don't you think this issue came up the last time they tried to kill off sealing? The modern method of sealing is less barbaric than the way they used to hunt them. They do suffer less.
4. They're just fishermen trying to get richer during the fishing off-season. No. A gentleman from Newfoundland who was interviewed on the same CBC Radio program said so himself. He is a seasoned sealer of nearly six decades. He said that for experienced sealers like him, $25,000 was a good year. He said that he would never salute the maple leaf flag, and that he was ashamed to be a Canadian because of the protest against the seal hunt. The flag of Newfoundland that's posted outside his home was turned upside down on the day of that interview.
If you are a true Canadian, then you will boycott Paul McCartney for boycotting seal products. If not, then way to stand up for your fellow Canadians. Now I really know what this damn country is all about.
This would be just another reason to add to the long list of why I detest this country that my people were forced into becoming a part of. ---Seosamh Morvern, Halifax
