Experts de l'UE empêchés d'observer la chasse au phoque

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EU official criticizes Canada for blocking seal hunt observers

Canada fumbled its chance to prove once and for all that its critics are wrong in asserting that the seal hunt is cruel and inhumane, Europe's environment czar said Thursday.

European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the Canadian government, which complains that the EU is being manipulated by anti-sealing groups spreading misinformation, blocked a team of European experts sent on a fact-finding mission during the 2007 hunt.

"If a team of experts wasn't able to look at what is happening, and how it is being conducted, why do they (the Canadian government) claim that other evidence is not correct?" Dimas, in Paris to attend a major climate change conference, told Canwest News Service.

"I don't know whether it was bad faith. I don't think so. But the fact is they were prevented from doing what they were going to do."

The comment from Dimas, who said he will present legislation soon to ban all seal product imports into Europe, represented a two-pronged attack Thursday on the embattled Canadian industry.

The second assault was launched domestically when Green Leader Elizabeth May denounced the hunt and called for its permanent closure.

She said the hunt is "inherently inhumane," dangerous for workers, produces little economic benefit and hurts Canada's reputation abroad.

"Taxpayers' dollars have been wasted on a grand show for the European Union, complete with an expensive propaganda campaign and lobbying effort," May said in a statement.

She also criticized the recent arrest of crew members and detention of the Farley Mowat, a hunt observation vessel operated by Paul Watson's Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn shot back that May "has chosen to parrot propaganda from a militant organization which jeopardized the safety of sealers instead of standing up for Canadians in coastal communities."

Canadian Fisheries Conservation Ambassador Loyola Sullivan, who has just returned from a tour of European capitals, said the EU delegation announced the trip at the last minute and was denied access to the 2007 hunt for safety reasons.

"We entered into the heaviest period of ice you can imagine. We had 100 vessels stranded. We had vessels lost in ice. They had to be airlifted to save human lives," Sullivan said in an interview.

"And it wasn't practical to use our fisheries patrol vessels or coast guard vessels to move people out to the ice when we had human life at stake."

He said EU delegations would always be welcome to observe the hunt under normal circumstances, and lamented the body's apparent intention of imposing a ban without being fully informed.

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