Jim Winter, founding president, Canadian Sealers Association
Jim Winter was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, and is married with three children. He has worked as a journalist with both CBC and SRC, in addition to doing freelance work for many other media organisations. In 1978 he won the Association of Canadian Radio and Television Artists (ACTRA) award – Best writer, documentary.
He was the founding president of the Canadian Sealers Association.
The Canadian Sealers Association has lost one of its major figures and a courageous champion with the death of past… Read More
Mark in his favourite sealskin jacket.
The Canadian Sealers Association has lost one of its major figures and a courageous champion with the death of past president Mark Small, on January 18. He was 83 years old.
To show respect for Mark's contributions to the CSA, to our home province, and to sealing communities across Canada, Jim Winter, founding CSA president, Eldred Woodford, current president, and Albert Newhook, an earlier president, were present for the celebration of Mark's life at Trinity Pentecostal Church, in Baie Verte, on the remote northeast peninsula of Newfoundland.
For decades Mark was a major figure in the association's efforts to counter the propaganda of animal rights corporations and remove the politically motivated bans on Canadian seal products in many countries.
Mark cared. More importantly, he acted on his caring. What more can you ask of a person?
Left: Excited at the thought of fish and brewis for supper. Right: Father and son with their catch of turrs (to use the local lingo). You may know them as common murres or guillemots.
Caring is one thing, but taking action is a much harder thing to do. For decades Mark took action. He took action on behalf of all sealers throughout Canada. His presence made a difference. His presence at events was the presence of the people, in the midst of various Canadian government politicians and bureaucrats. In fact, often his presence was to spur those entities into taking concrete positive steps to resolve the issues that plague the Canadian sealing industry – issues that also plague rural coastal communities like his beloved Baie Verte.
Mark saw the sealing industry not only as a 400-year-old tradition throughout coastal communities in Atlantic Canada, but also as an important contributor today to the continued existence of those rural communities dependent on the mosaic of incomes that provide a living for their citizens. Sealing, fishing, hunting, farming, being a "jack of all trades" – all pieces in the financial mosaic that rural coastal communities depend on for survival. Mark spoke our facts, our realities, in Canada and to foreign politicians and media. He did so clearly, passionately, and concisely.
Harp seals as far as the eye can see – a view that Mark Small loved. Photo: Jim Winter
Mark was a man of great caring, and that caring was rooted in his faith as a pastor in the Pentecostal church. His faith infused everything he did. It made him the man he was.
He was not only an activist for the sealing industry, he was equally active in the fishery and in his community.
Despite the challenges of all those activities, his prime focus was always on his wife, Patricia, and their three sons. As time passed he became a loving grandfather, uncle, and great uncle.
Mark, as you set sail on this new voyage may you have fair winds, full holds and bloody decks. R.I.P.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcypI9yHxiY
Mark Small is featured in this old episode of CBC TV's series Land & Sea.
The sealing industry, like most industries, employs many more people than simply the primary producers. The same can be said… Read More
The sealing industry, like most industries, employs many more people than simply the primary producers. The same can be said for the fur industry in all its aspects. The hunting and trapping industries are no different, nor are the industries that raise cattle, pigs, lamb, sheep or any other animal utilized by humans for food or other products. The saying "no man is an island" applies also to industries.
While sealers are the primary producers in the sealing industry, by no means are they the only economic participants. Economists measuring the value of an industry take into consideration all those whose economic activities are dependent on, and contribute to, the work of the primary producers. This is usually referred to as “spin-off economic benefits”. It makes up the total value of an industry.
The same kind of economic analysis applies to all the industries mentioned above. A cattle ranch, for example, does not operate in a vacuum. It is dependent on many others, and in turn provides income for those who interact with it ranging from the ranch hands to the grocery stores to the furniture or clothing stores who sell the various products a cattle ranch provides. In fact there is a complete chain of people whose contributions and earnings make it possible for any primary producer to survive. Hunting, trapping, fur farming and so on – it is all the same. It is people earning a living.
Sealers are the primary producers, but the spin-off economic benefits of the sealing industry impact thousands of Canadians.
Harp seals off the Canadian east coast number about 7.5 million animals and are not now nor have ever been placed on any reputable list of endangered or even threatened species. The same applies to other seal species hunted by Canadians.
There are many thousand, mostly rural, Canadians (Americans, British and Europeans) who are dependent on sealers, hunters, trappers, ranchers and others mentioned for parts of their income. Rural people rarely have “salaries” so their income is dependent on bits and pieces of work much of which comes from primary producers who raise animals for slaughter or kill them personally. The work of these people enables the primary producers to operate their enterprises and provide the others in the chain with an essential part of their livelihood. It is a circle of interdependence.
Parts of the income of these people are threatened by attacks on the sealing industry which is the primary target of the animal rights corporations. But sealing is not the only target. Sealing is merely the main target – a prime fundraising source for these multi-million-dollar American-headquartered corporations. Their goal is the elimination of human use of all animals for any purpose. Attacks on sealing are the driving fundraiser to facilitate attacks on the fur industry, hunters, trappers, ranchers and farmers who raise animals for food and other products. The end result, if these animal rights corporations are successful, will be the elimination of work for all people in all these industries.
Who are these people whose work enables the primary producer to operate successfully?
Sealing Industry: A Cross Section of Society
In the sealing industry they are the people who sell fuel, groceries, insurance (both personal and vessel), rifles and ammunition – sealers shoot about 99% of the seals they kill – and tools of the trade to sealers who go to sea under adverse conditions. Not to mention shipyard workers who repair damaged sealing vessels. For other primary animal-based industries, the people involved may do the same and other things, but the principle is the same.
They are truckers who transport seals from landing ports to the plants and buy gas and food in the process. Furs, cattle, pigs, lamb, sheep and other animals also have be transported from one place to another by truckers.
Producing sealskin clothing and bringing it to market requires a long chain of people. The same goes for any product of the sealing industry.
They are the plant workers who process the seal pelts (hides) and the plant owners who sell the resulting skins and oil – oil which other plant workers in other places turn into omega3 capsules. The other industries discussed also need primary plant workers and a complete chain of people supplying the trades needed to make their products available to the market.
They are the people who create things. They are clothing manufacturers who produce coats, boots, shoes, hats, gloves, slippers, purses, ties, wraps, etc. They are makers of sofas, chairs, saddles, automobile seat and steering wheel coverings, and so on and so on. All this from the pelts they buy and transform into products for sale to the general public. Seals or cows or pigs or lambs or sheep, the same process applies.
Flipper pies don't appear from thin air. Working people must produce, process and ship every ingredient, then cook the pies and bring them to market.
They are food processors, food trucks, grocery stores, caterers and restaurants who sell seal meat they have purchased from sealers or plants; or other meats obtained from other animals bought from other sources.
They are artists and artisans who create products from seal pelts and a wide variety of other animal hides and sell them through galleries, wholesalers, retailers, or directly to customers.
In short, they are a cross section of society. They are men and women with a common dependence on the activities of the sealers and all animal-based primary producers for portions of their annual income.
They are men and women working to provide food and necessities for their families.
Like flipper pies, bottled seal meat production helps employ a host of people, not just sealers.
Inuit Reject EU "Exemption"
Anti-sealing propaganda, anti-fur propaganda, is an insidious thing and unless countered by a critical press and politicians asking hard questions, it will continue as long as it is profitable. Animal rights corporations have hundreds of millions of dollars so it is little wonder they have politicians to do their bidding. It is little wonder that media, starved for copy, are in their pockets as nothing sells like "cute" animal stories.
It is time for politicians and media to remember the immortal line of Pogo: I have met the enemy and he is us.
Anti-sealing, anti-fur, anti-animal-usage corporations constantly make pious, politically correct statements that they are not against sealing or other forms of hunting by indigenous peoples. However, Inuit organisations – including the Inuit Circumpolar Conference – have rejected the EU “exemption” on their seal products as being economically meaningless, paternalistic, and colonialistic.
The recent World Trade Organisation (WTO) enquiry found that the EU “seal ban” was illegal, but to protect the so-called “morals” of EU citizens, the ban would stand. An interesting decision given that many countries within the EU legally kill seals as do Americans and Russians. They both also ban Canadian seal products. Of course they all also kill all the other species Canadians kill. Hypocrisy reigns supreme.
When the WTO uses questionable “moral standards” based on propaganda as a basis for upholding individual state bans they have declared to be illegal, all importers and exporters of all products based on animal killing should be worried. Today's bans are on seal products, but tomorrow's will be on what? Products derived from cows, pigs, lamb, muskrat, mink, wolverine, beaver, etc.? Sealers are today's victims. Tomorrow's could be you.
Canadian sealers, Canadian furriers, Canadians in all animal-killing industries simply want all citizens of all countries to have their democratic right to choose for themselves to use, or not to use, animal-based products, and not have that right denied by bought politicians.
History proves that when propaganda triumphs, democracy loses.
At an anti-sealing protest outside the Canadian embassy in the Hague in 2007, the media were more interested in Aaju Peter (right), her son Aagu, and me than they were in the protesters. Besides being a lawyer and Inuk clothing designer, in 2011 Aaju was named a member of the Order of Canada for her work promoting and preserving Inuit culture.
Attacking the sealing industry or any of the other animal-based primary producers is attacking all of the people involved in the chain.
When scientifically established quotas ensure the stability or growth of a species' population; when laws, licensing and training ensure humane killing; when there is no question of a population being either endangered or threatened; when markets are viable and ensure an income to the workers; the only possible objection can be an "animal rights belief" – a belief held by less the two percent of Western society. Sadly, animal rights advocates and their celebrity friends “own” both the media and international politicians, and the result is a huge threat to the livelihoods of many thousands of Canadians, Americans and other rural peoples.
Unless you take George Orwell’s Animal Farm literally, no species is more equal than the others. There is no “Aryan” species. No industry is an island. It is more like a continent.
The sealing industry is a continent populated by citizens victimized by propaganda and political correctness as expressed by the one per-center celebrities in the thrall of the animal rights corporations.
The European Union recently announced that products made from seals hunted by Inuit people can continue to be sold in the… Read More
Putting sexy back in sealskin: Nunavut seamstresses aim for high-end fashion market. CBC News.
The European Union recently announced that products made from seals hunted by Inuit people can continue to be sold in the EU despite the 2009 ban that prevents the importation or sale of all other seal products. It is impossible to imagine a sealing policy that would be more hypocritical and anti-democratic.
Canadian sealing is a sustainable use of a natural resource carried out by licensed, well-trained sealers under the rules and regulations of the government of Canada, which have been developed based upon both population science and humane killing techniques. In 1971 a quota management program was established for the Northwest Atlantic harp seal stock, and the population is estimated to have grown since then from 1.8 million to the 5.9 million, according to the IUCN. World-wide the population is close to 8 million, with "All known stocks ... increasing in number".
Despite the comments of the animal rights groups, the world-wide markets for seal products (food, Omega-3 fatty acids, oil, fur, leather) continue to exist. They exist but are inaccessible because the decades-old animal rights propaganda campaigns have co-opted (bought?) politicians in the EU, the USA, and other countries to deny their citizens their democratic right to choose to buy seal products.
Even in its stronghold of North America, surveys suggest the animal rights philosophy (i.e., no animal use) is adhered to by less than 3 percent of people. And because of this lack of popular support, animal rights groups can only further their agenda by using their multi-million-dollar war chests to lobby politicians to pass laws denying citizens their right of choice: anti-democratic to say the least. Like autocrats throughout history, it seems that these wealthy activist groups don't trust individual citizens to do "the right thing".
Hypocrisy Everywhere
The World Trade Organisation enquiry found that the “seal ban” was against its rules, but in the interest of protecting the “morals” of EU citizens the ban would stand: thus buying into the animal rights propaganda that killing seals is immoral. An interesting decision given that many countries within the EU continue to kill seals legally in the Baltic and North seas.
Animal rights groups constantly make pious, politically correct statements that they are not against Inuit sealing. For decades, Inuit organisations (including the Inuit Circumpolar Council, or ICC, which represents Northern Aboriginal communities around the world) has rejected this “exemption” as being meaningless, based in a colonialist mentality, and little short of racism.
Thousands of rural Canadian citizens are directly and indirectly employed in the sealing industry earning a living for their families. Sealing is part of an annual mosaic of income for rural Canadians whose money is derived from a number of individual activities that in total provide a livelihood that enables them to live in their communities. The same thing applies to Canadian farmers, ranchers, trappers, hunters, and so on: the only difference is the species killed. Few rural Canadians have the luxury of a guaranteed annual salary.
Animal rights groups keep on about a “buyout” for those in the sealing industry. A one-year buyout? A two-year buyout? Or an annual buyout till all those involved have died? For whom? For sealers, plant workers, truckers, diesel suppliers, insurance agents, garment manufacturers, artists, artisans, grocery suppliers, gun and ammunition stores, vehicle sales people? For all or only some of them? Will they pay the many millions involved? No. These American-headquartered multi-million-dollar groups want the Canadian tax payer to subsidize their ridiculous views.
At an anti-sealing protest outside the Canadian embassy in the Hague in March 2007, the media were more interested in Aaju Peter (right), her son Aagu, and me than they were in the protesters. Besides being a lawyer and Inuk clothing designer, in 2011 Aaju was named a member of the Order of Canada for her work promoting and preserving Inuit culture.
Resource Use Is Not Disneyland
"Baby seals"? The use of the word "baby" is simply an anthropomorphism, the Bambi syndrome, designed to influence and upset urban people who have a total disconnect with the sources of their food, clothing, medicines and other objects of daily use. The seals killed are fully weaned, are independent of their dames, and are on their own to survive or not: this is nature, not Bambi in Disneyland.
Death by gunshot or hakapik is instantaneous as found by innumerable studies by independent vets from Canada, the USA and the EU. The only negative studies have been bought and paid for by animal rights groups. The reality is that no animal-killing is pretty: it is by nature ugly. But pretty and ugly are not synonyms for right and wrong or good and bad. Sealing is simply an outdoor abattoir without the offal problems of land-based abattoirs (dumping it in landfills) because what we cannot use we leave on the ice to return to the eco-system as food for birds, marine mammals, fish and crustaceans: ecologically correct and green.
Travesty of Fiction Over Fact
The reality of the 50 years of animal rights propaganda has been the diminution of the incomes of thousands of Canadian citizens while these American-headquartered groups have collected hundreds of millions of dollars from people who think they are supporting animal care and conservation. One group alone generates contributions close to $100 million annually.
To adapt Winston Churchill's famous turn of phrase, never have so many been so misled by so few for such nefarious reasons. For decades these groups have said nothing new, yet their comments are deemed “newsworthy”. They and their celebrity friends utter ridiculous comments and no journalists challenge them. It's a circus, a travesty of fiction over fact, and proof that hypocrisy reigns supreme. It is media manipulation of the highest order.
Propaganda is an insidious thing and unless countered by a free press prepared to ask the hard questions it will continue ad infinitum. It is time for individuals, politicians and media to remember the immortal line of Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
The anti-sealing story is the second greatest propaganda campaign of the last 85 years. Democracy is about the right of citizens to choose. History has shown us that when propaganda triumphs, democracy loses.
Nobody in the Canadian sealing industry wants people to buy their products if they do not wish to. Canadian sealers only want all citizens to have their democratic right to choose for themselves to use or not use seal products.
Animal rights is not animal conservation or animal welfare. The goal of animal rights groups like the Humane Society of the US (and its extension, Humane Society International) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, to name but two, is not to end sealing but rather to end man’s use - not just killing, but any use - of all animals for any reason. Read their mission statements. Seals are the tactic not the goal.
Anti-sealing is the epitome of George Orwell’s position in Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
The animal rights anti-sealing movement may have won some battles but not the war. If it wins the war you will have to look around to see whom among you will be the next victim. The beef, pork, chicken or lamb producers? The trappers, hunters or fur farmers? The clothes manufacturer, shoemaker, auto manufacturer or furniture manufacturer? Anyone who uses animals for any purpose at all? You?
Yours truly (second from left) with an American camera crew shooting for the TV series The Politics of Food.
