Seal Meat – a Matter of the Heart

“Well, if it helps to prolong my period in office…,” her Excellency, the Governor General of Canada, Ms Michaëlle Jean, may have thought as her well-manicured hand reached for a big knife. It was almost as if she wanted to prove that there is nothing, but absolutely nothing that politicians will shrink back from to gain popularity when she carved into the ribcage of a seal, cut out the bleeding heart and ate parts of it, as smiling Inuit looked on. “It was absolutely delicious,” she declared. Her fellow politician, Senator Mac Harb, has also eaten seal meat. His verdict by contrast: “It tastes awful.”

Actually, this bizarre PR war concerning seal meat is something of a sideshow. The real issue is whether or not the industrial seal hunt and seal trade are to continue. Now that the U.S. and the EU have prohibited all imports of seal products, China and Russia are the only importing countries left. They are primarily interested in seal furs. Even Inuit hunters nearly always discard the meat. So it really should not be much of an issue any longer, especially in light of the fact that the price per kilogram of seal meat dropped by two thirds in recent years.

In order to keep the matter on the agenda anyhow, the parliamentary Committee on the Economy has decreed that the parliament’s cafeteria is obliged to offer at least one seal dish. Prior to finding out how many Senators and Members of Parliament would actually order seal for lunch, a supplier needed to be found. The seal hunters want to sell furs, they are not interested in meat. Finally, a tiny trading post that agreed to supply seal meat to the parliamentary canteen was found on the Magdalen Islands.

But despite these major PR efforts you can bet your bottom dollar that once it has been ostentatiously served on some TV show, seal stew (or whatever it may be) will disappear from the parliamentary cafeteria on the QT. And very likely, the mass slaughter of seals along Canada’s East Coast will come to an end as well. The important markets in the U.S. and Europe no longer want seal products.

So it remains to be seen if the Governor General’s bloody lunch will pay off. Formally speaking, she is the vice-regal representative of Queen Elizabeth II in Canada. We cannot help but wonder whether Her Majesty over in Buckingham Palace is “amused” by the sight of her representative with seal blood dripping down her chin. So that second period in office may not be a done deal yet.

Author: Walter Karpf

Translation: Rüdiger Strempel

This is a translation of a German article that was put on our website on the 23rd of November 2009.