Lib MP links pie tossing to terrorism

Liberal MP Gerry Byrne says he believes the federal government should investigate whether the pieing of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea by a woman opposed to the seal hunt constitutes an act of terrorism.

I think Gerry should at least get a cupcake for that.

Gerry Byrne hails from Newfoundland Labrador where, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada:

"Approximately 1% of the total population of Newfoundland and Labrador derive income from sealing."

When last we heard from our FishMin Gail Shea, she was promoting BC's fish farms at a trade show in Norway, where their Minister of Fisheries is "a co-owner of a salmon farming company and former head of the Norwegian salmon farmers association". Over 90% of the open-pen fish farms in BC originate in Norway.

Asked about the connection between fish farming and the collapse of the Skeena and Fraser River salmon fisheries in December, Gail Shea, minister in charge of Fisheries and Oceans, said : "Nobody knows what’s happening in the marine environment."

I'm betting right now you want to replay that vid at least one more time.

We have had 5 pieings of politicians in Canada in the last decade, two of which were misses. Colby Cosh at Macleans says it's all fun and games till someone throws an acid pie, a particularly daft and rather desperate argument which depends on conflating tofu with acid. Or as one commenter over there points out : "it is stupid to say that pie throwing is serious because somebody could throw something WHICH IS NOT A PIE"

UPDATE : From Dammit Janet : Tofu Pie - It's the New Anthrax

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Canadian Club on Ice begins today

Last week Vladimir Putin banned the killing of baby harp seals under a year old in Russian waters, calling it "bloody industry" that "should have been banned a long time ago."

The Russian ban effectively ends commercial seal hunting in that country, as most of the market for pelts comes from seals less than a year old. The quota had previously been set at 35,000.

In Canada we've upped our quota by 55,000 to 338,200 seals from last year.

According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada :

Seals are not usually hunted until they reach the "beater" stage of development at around 25 days old.
Approximately 1% of the total population of Newfoundland and Labrador derive income from sealing.

Greenland and Norway combine for an annual catch of less than 50,000.

The European Union is expected to ban imports of seal products this spring.

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Snark hunting

Last week the German minister of agriculture said he would introduce a bill in German Parliament to ban the import of all seal products from Canada.
In retaliation, Newfoundland MP Scott Simms has proposed a motion to ban the import of German boar and venison into Canada.
Dave up at Dave's Snarky Northern Canadian Blog harbours some doubts as to the likely effectiveness of the Canadian counter-ban measures and asks :

Is German boar/deer in any of the following products? :
Beer?
Sausage?
BMW Z4 Roadster?

Duct tape malfunction

From Canadian citizen Pamela Anderson in her letter to Stephen Harper re the Atlantic seal harvest:
"I'm writing you today not so much about the horrific cruelty involved in the hunt, but about the impact of the government's indifference to such violence on Canada's image around the world."

Response from Canada's Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn who said he used to watch Anderson on the television show that propelled her to stardom :
"It's been a long time since she looked good on Baywatch."

Nice to see your ability to adequately defend your ministry's policy is contingent upon your ability to keep it in your pants.

Link

Ookpik

From b-boy :

Beyond the Great Barbarian Canadian Club on Ice blood and guts thing lies a softer story. A uniquely Canadian children's story. We all had an Ookpik, the original cabbage patch rage. I loved mine when I was 8. It looked like an owl, only cuter. Every lucky Canadian kid had one. Bet you had one too.
They kind of disappeared when Brigitte came on the scene.
There's dozens of wacko toy sites devoted to them.
Pop culture politics.
They were made of seal fur.

Canadian Club on Ice

The seal hunt

Anyone catch Paul and Heather McCartney drubbing Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams on Larry King Live about the upcoming March seal hunt or 'harvest' ?
Right off the top Williams brings up 9/11, and how 13,000 stranded Americans found homes for a week in Newfoundland and Labrador, homes with sealers and their families.
And how he and his daughters are animal lovers.
So, a little defensive then.

And he was more than a little creepy later in his response to Heather McCartney's complaint that the seals are killed just for fashion while their meat is left on the ice to rot and King's question as to why Canada doesn't forgo this 'harvest' in favour of eco-tourism.
Williams :
"These organizations, the IFAW, Green Peace, PETA raise significant amounts of money. There are hundreds of millions of dollars that are being raised by these organizations.And let me tell you the FBI right now have a file opened in their terrorism division investigating organizations like this, including the PETA organization, from a terrorism perspective."
Obviously Williams was confusing eco-tourism with eco-terrorism here.

So there's a universal moratorium on even mentioning opposition to the seal hunt if you've ever so much as eaten a boiled egg in your life. And it was a lot of work twenty years ago to get the minimum age at which baby seals can be killed up to 12 days, where it stands now.
Plus who wants to be labelled a weepy bleeding heart who is swayed by celebrities and cares more about cuteness than income for out-of-work fishermen?

I'll take that label.
Cuteness - If we can't respond to the needless slaughter of baby animals that appeal to us, how well are we going to do when confronted with the slaughter of frogs or spiders? Not too well so far. Let's start with the seals and work out from there.
Income - Fishermen have certainly been royally fucked around by the Canadian government and Premier Danny Williams is right to defend them as best he can. So why not eco-tourism? Why not take the Canadian taxpayers' money that Fisheries and Oceans Canada now spends on "aerial patrols, surface (vessel) patrols, dockside inspections of vessels at landing sites and inspections at buying and processing facilities. In 2004, Fishery Officers spent approximately 8600 hours monitoring and enforcing the hunt. In the last five years, 94 charges were laid and convictions were upheld in 57 of those cases" and invest it in jobs in eco-tourism for fishermen instead?
Celebrities - Robert Thurman, the early Buddhist campaigner for public awareness on the plight of Tibet, was once asked how he could countenance support from frivolous celebrities like Richard Gere. I have to paraphrase Thurman's answer because I can't find the quote, but it was something along the lines of - 'Celebrities already have everything they could ask for - money, fame, security, recognition in their field and all their needs taken care of. They are therefore perfectly situated to think about what's really important in the world.'

Thanks for listening.

CBC FOC