Commentary by Captain Paul Watson
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

It is appropriate that Loyola Hearn is the presiding Fisheries Minister at the time when the European Union has struck the most effective blow yet against Canada's obscene annual seal massacre.

Canadian Fisheries Ministers have always shared the character attributes of incompetence, ecological stupidity and media ineptness. From Romeo Le Blanc, to John Crosbie, to Brian Tobin, to the present reigning fish czar Loyola Hearn, they have all been willing to ignore science and the truth in order to spin their silly lies to justify the cruel slaughter of seals as "humane" and to characterize their incredible incompetence in diminishing fish populations as "responsible management."

Loyola Hearn, however, is in a league of his own when it comes to defending the seal hunt.  He manipulates reality with a blatant contempt for the truth like no other fish dick before him. He shoots media releases from the hip without thinking, and has actually described himself as a modern day "Wyatt Earp" warning seal defenders that there is "a new sheriff in town."

If we are quaking in our non-leather boots, it is from laughter and not fear. Hearn is quite simply the most ridiculous individual to hold the title of Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Canadian history.

In response to the European Union banning seal products, Hearn has responded by saying that Canada has nothing to fear because the ban only targets seals that have been inhumanely killed. The man who has never witnessed the death of a seal himself still believes the propaganda of his bureaucrats that the slaughter is the "most well regulated humane slaughter of wildlife in the world."

As Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels once said, "Repeat a lie often enough and people will begin to believe it is the truth."

Europeans are not buying it, and Hearn knows that. So at the same time that he is telling sealers what they want to hear, that the ban will not affect them, he is talking about trade retaliations against Europe.

His threat to boycott European wine is especially ridiculous. Why ban European wine because they ban seal pelts, when American wine is not being banned and they have prohibited seal products into the United States since 1972?

I'm sure that urban Canadians in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver are not going to support a ban on European wine just so some Newfoundland sealer can continue to bash seal pups on the head for a few bucks and his vulgar sadistic kicks.

Hearn retaliated last week when he warned the European Union that its ban on seal products should not target his country's ‘humanely conducted hunt.'

"Once again, we would like to caution European decision-makers: adopting broad regulations to ban products from a responsible, sustainable and well-regulated hunt is a slippery slope," said Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn.

"To bow to misinformation and emotional rhetoric in restricting the trade of humanely harvested animals would set a dangerous precedent' for all wild hunts," he continued.  Although the ban is said to target Canada, Hearn insisted that Canada's annual slaughter of up to 275,000 seals is ‘a humanely conducted hunt.'

I hope that it does set a precedent for banning the slaughter of all wild animals. Such a course smacks of being civilized and decent, two virtues that Hearn seems to have a problem with.

Newfoundland's acting fisheries minister, Trevor Taylor, has called on Hearn to file a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization.

This will be difficult because the WTO could rule on a ban as unfair but not if it is on a ban for a product that is obtained from an inhumane slaughter. The WTO cannot be seen to condone suffering in the name of trade.

The wording of the European legislation is brilliant. It specifically bans products from inhumane slaughter. Hearn will have to prove that the killing is humane or he will have to argue that Europe cannot ban products from a cruel and inhumane slaughter.

A spokesman for Hearn said Ottawa couldn't launch a WTO challenge until the EU measure is actually implemented. But if Hearn is so convinced that the Canadian seal slaughter is humane then why is he even thinking of launching a challenge?

Ottawa launched a WTO complaint last year after Belgium implemented legislation banning the import of seal products within its borders.

In December, the European Food Safety Authority released a report that found there is little peer-reviewed science on the hunting and skinning of seals.

In an effort to defend the slaughter Canada is seeking to support a Greek scientist who wants to kill 300,000 seals a year to harvest heart valves for human cardiac surgery. Proponents are boasting that is could be a billion dollar industry

Canadian fisheries ambassador Loyola Sullivan has been preaching the position of a European cardiac surgeon who is bragging that his new surgical techniques may create a demand for 300,000 harp seal heart valves a year.

This is of course a desperate move considering that heart valves are already taken from slaughtered pigs, but without any explanation Sullivan is saying that seal valves are superior to pig valves. Considering that the Greek vivisector is receiving Canadian funding he is quick to promote seal valves.

So Canada is now backing this Dr. Mengele wannabe with a Frankensteinian plan to stitch animal body parts into the human anatomy.

What an embarrassment that would be to have 300,000 seals killed every year just for heart valves that can be obtained elsewhere or from synthetic materials.

What Canada is trying to say is that seal defenders will let humans die of heart failure simply to save the seals. Just another weird attempt to portray kind and gentle seal defenders as monstrous and anti-human. Again, as Goebbels said, "if you repeat a lie often enough..."

Canadian politicians live in such fear of fishermen that they will stoop to every ridiculous level possible to find ways to keep fishermen feeding at the public trough.

The seal slaughter has been and will continue to be a glorified welfare project for ignorant men who are just too damn lazy to get a decent job.

Dion Dakins, an executive with Atlantic Marine Products has even condemned the United States for their ban on seal products by saying that "people suffering from health issues like heart disease and diabetes in the U.S are prohibited from buying seal products by an outdated piece of legislation."

Of course the seal products he is referring to are seal oil capsules that contain Omega 3 fatty acids in addition to mercury, PCB's and other heavy metal contaminants.

And so the ridiculous and pathetic crusade by the Canadian government to defend sadistic baby seal bashers carries on in the face of reality and common sense. After all the Canadian taxpayers provide unlimited funds to politicians like Hearn to champion their own private obsessions.

I think that Hearn was once bitten by a baby seal when he was a little boy. Nothing else can really explain the man's hysterical hatred for the harp seals and their defenders.

I know one thing for sure that as a young boy myself on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence I once saw a brute of a man kick a seal pup in the face and then torment it with a sharp knife before skinning it alive and that is a memory that will forever haunt me and will ensure that I will fight the obscenity, the cruelty and the horror of the seal slaughter until the day that I die or until the day that Canada finally becomes a civilized nation and ends this annual massacre once and forever.