Seal hunts yes, Paul McCartney no

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

This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2009.