Points importants concernant la visite du min. Hearn en Belg

[Animal 0]

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Points importants concernant la visite du ministre Hearn en Belgique pour promouvoir les produits du phoque du Canada...
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- Loyola Hearn invited members of the Belgian government to come to
see the seal hunt for themselves, indicating if they could just see it, they
would find it acceptable. But the fact is, they already have. A Belgian MP
and Belgian Senator came out to the seal hunt in 2004, and this is one of
the reasons the Belgian government is banning seal products.

- A large number of Belgian journalists, including Belgium's
leading newspapers and television stations, also witnessed the seal hunt
firsthand in 2004. Those journalists interviewed DFO spokespeople and
sealers during their stay in Canada and heard both sides of the argument.

- Loyola Hearn's visit is nothing new - the Canadian government has
spent a great deal of taxpayers' money sending DFO and Foreign Affairs
representatives (people far more eloquent and convincing than Hearn) to
Belgium to lobby against the pending ban. Nothing has swayed Belgium's
resolve to ban seal products.

- Belgium is a sovereign nation, and has the right to ban seal
products if the majority of Belgians find seal products unacceptable. Canada
should not be interfering with their intent to take action for seals.

[Animal 0]

Dear Ambassador and Citizens of Belgium:

As a Canadian, and a wildlife preservationist, I am deeply grateful
to your country for seriously considering the importation ban of
Canadian seal products.

In fact, as a Canadian, I am writing to ask your country to further
consider banning all products from my country until the heinous
commercial seal massacre has been terminated.

Some may consider this an act of treason on the part of a Canadian
citizen to make such a request upon a foreign government, but many
who have heard my speeches at home and abroad understand that this
is a plea from a concerned and informed Canadian for Belgium to help
save the reputation of my country worldwide, since our own
politicians would not take such a necessary step.

Please pay no attention to the shameful and shameless manipulations
of fisheries minister Loyola Hearn, who is broadly reviled by most
Canadians outside of his home province of Newfoundland, which I will
dissect by the following three points:

1. Mr. Hearn is blaming the seals for the incompetence of his own
ministry in the decimation of the Atlantic cod fishery. The seals,
in fact are the benefactors of cod, serving as a population control
of the twenty or so other species of cod-predators. Were the seals
destroyed, these predatory fish would destroy what remains of the
cod almost overnight.

2. Mr. Hearn's assertion that killing baby seals is the sealers'
livelihood is blatantly false. The sealing season lasts for only
two weeks per year. Killing seals is nothing more than a part-time
job. Many sealers do it because they love to kill, not because they
need to. A U.S. citizen, Ms. Cathy Kangas of Connecticut, has
offered the sealers U.S.$16 million to stop the hunt, and they have
flatly declined, proving that it is not an economic issue.

3. Mr. Hearn's worst manipulation of all is to try to "guilt trip"
Belgium into submission. Historical and universal wisdom has it
that when one does another a favor, it is a gift, not a bargain, not
a trade. When a gift is given, one should NEVER expect, nor even
hope for, a return. Hearn's mouthing of his very despicable words
has dishonored all Canadians, and cheapened the sacrifices of those
Canadian who have given their lives to a noble cause.

In closing, I would like to say one thing in which I do agree with
Mr. Hearn, and that is to invite EU members to observe the seal
massacre, which will prove even more convincing than our video,
which, by the way, is less than one year old, not 20 years old as in
Mr. Hearn's deceitful claim.

Most sincerely yours,

Anthony Marr
Vancouver, BC, Canada


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Hearn invites EU members to observe seal hunt
Fri. Sep. 1 2006 12:59 PM ET
Canadian Press

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Canada's fisheries minister has chosen a novel
way to persuade politicians in Belgium to reconsider a plan to ban
imports of Newfoundland seal products.

Loyola Hearn, in Brussels this week to meet with the European
Union's fisheries commissioner to discuss foreign overfishing, said
he reminded the Belgians of the many Canadian soldiers who lost
their lives in Belgium during the First World War.

The Newfoundland MP said an import ban would amount to "taking the
livelihood away from a number of Canadians whose family members left
their blood on the fields here in Belgium, Flanders fields and other
places.

"That got their attention,'' he told St. John's radio station
VOCM. "But the thing is they are looking much more seriously at what
we're saying and have agreed to look for the facts.''

Hearn said he extended an invitation to members of the European
Parliament to visit Canada and learn more about the seal hunt.

"I've sort of challenged them to look for the truth, for the facts,
and to visit Canada to make up their own minds. Don't base their
decisions on ... what they heard and seen from lobby groups who are
using 20-year-old videos.'' Quel salaud ! Quel menteur !!!!!!


Hearn said he raised the issue of the seal hunt after he learned
that members of the Belgian Parliament were in the process of
introducing legislation to ban the importation of seal products.


Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
Compassion for Animals Road Expeditions (CARE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org