On the eve of a European ban on seal products, Canada's Inuit are going all out to convert their VIP guests to the wonders of the blubbery grey mammal as they host this week's meeting of G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit.
Europe's political elite will be treated to a first-hand look, feel, and taste of the seal hunt's importance to life in the Far North.
The chairs the ministers will use during a private meeting in Nunavut's legislature are upholstered in shiny sealskin. The servers will sport sealskin hairpins. Seal vests and mitts will be given as gifts. And Saturday's evening feast at the local school will be an Inuit “country” supper of meats and fish from the land and sea, some of it served raw. Seal is on the menu.
Take that, PETA.
Canada's Inuit leaders are on the front lines of a lobbying war that has seen them crisscrossing the Atlantic in the hope of preventing a European Union ban this spring on seal products. The Inuit have so far lost out to the high-profile campaigns of animal rights groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who make effective use of celebrity supporters such as Paul McCartney. The PETA campaign against the “bloody seal slaughter” criticizes Canada as a clueless nation for allowing the hunt.
The Inuit plan on countering all that.
“The issue and topic of sealing will be very evident,” said Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Monday. Ms. Aariak said the visitors can be assured that Saturday's country feast will be prepared in “the most cuisine fashion,” with an assortment of Arctic char jerky, muskox, blueberries, caribou, fish and seal.
“We hope that [the visit] will be the event of a lifetime for a lot of the delegates, knowing that they have never been this far north in their lives, and experiencing first-hand what Inuit are all about,” Ms. Aariak said.
The most recent dignitaries to land in Iqaluit, Nunavut's small capital, embraced the hunt. Governor-General Michaëlle Jean made waves internationally last May when she helped carve a fresh seal and gulped down a piece of its bloody, raw heart.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper followed in August with his cabinet. They opted to show their support by releasing a staged photo of themselves preparing to sample from a tray of cooked seal bits with toothpicks.
This visit will be different. Four of the seven G7 nations are European: Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Japan, the United States and Canada round out the group.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is not planning to wear seal at the gathering. His office says the location was chosen for its scenery and because it will allow the gathering to return to its informal beginnings.
But federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuit woman who represents Nunavut in the House of Commons, says visitors should learn that seal is the local, affordable option in the North, and that it is no different when southerners eat turkey and beef.
“It's absolutely an opportunity to educate the international community,” she said, expressing her frustration with the anti-seal campaigns. “They're protesting because some rock star laid on the ice with a seal. … I'm frankly sick and tired of being a target of international organizations.”
Inuit leader Mary Simon, who is currently on a personal leave, has campaigned against the EU seal ban at every turn. Her organization, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, filed a lawsuit last month in the European General Court to overturn the EU law that will ban the import of seal products.
In an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail last year, Ms. Simon wrote that the anti-seal campaign is an insult to indigenous people because it ignores the question of how meat ends up on the dinner tables of rich, urban societies.
