MPs urge seal skin for Canadian Olympic uniforms

(As if we didn’t already know that our so-called ‘leaders’ are absolutely insane, we were treated to this front page headline. Further articles reveal that the Canadian Olympic team is oppossed to this idea, as anyone in their right mind should be.
I seriously don’t understand why the Canadian government is so worked up about the seal product ban. They spend more money on the coast guard during the hunt then the seal hunt ever sees in profit. It’s been a losing game for years, and yet we spend money to protect it. (An excellent editorial last year in the National Post laid out very clearly the costs of this hunt, and why it should be oppossed simply for it’s cost to the taxpayer.)
As opposed to the olypics as we here as Save Feral Human Habitat are, we understand that the atheletes are just pawns in the grand capitalist gentrification machine that is the ‘Games’. They get a gold medal for standing up to this lunacy.)

By Alan Kors, Canwest News Service

Canadian MPs have pushed forward a motion urging Canada’s 2010 Olympic team to add seal skin to their uniforms to show solidarity for the embattled East Coast seal hunters.

“With the upcoming Winter Olympics that will be in Vancouver in 2010, the government has a chance to offer some concrete action to promote seal products. Today we are tabling a motion aimed at studying the possibility to integrate [seal skin] into the Canadian athletes’ uniforms, and we hope the Canadian government is ready to act, to save an industry, one which several families in my riding depend on,” said Bloc Quebec MP Raynald Blais.

The motion, which received unanimous support, said “the government should take advantage of the opportunity provided by the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games to promote seal products, particularly by studying the possibility of using these products in the making of the Canadian Olympic clothing.”

It came on the heels of a Tuesday vote in the European Parliament to ban the import of seal products.

Canadian Olympic Committee president Mike Chambers said adding seal products to Olympians’ gear would not only mar athletes’ performance, but politicize the Games.

“I’m used to those in the political arena wishing to attach their issues to the Olympic arena,” he said from Lausanne, Switzerland. “But this is one… that will not, and cannot, be allowed to occur. It’s our intent for our athletes to remain free of the politics that arises in and around the Olympic Games. The seal issue, while important, is an issue that has become politicized.”

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games would not comment, as athletes’ uniforms are the responsibility of the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada strongly objects to the parliament’s vote to ban the import of seal products, but said Ottawa won’t allow that dispute to disrupt trade negotiations.

The PM announced Wednesday “historic” negotiations that could lead to a lucrative Canada-Europe trade agreement by 2011.

“We cannot let a single disagreement contaminate and undermine all the other issues,” said Mr. Harper.

Back in Ottawa, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea called it “a good symbolic suggestion.”

“I think it would be a good statement for the Canadian sealing industry and Canada’s support of it.”

And Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh added, “It’s an industry in the Atlantic, and I believe that our caucus is unanimous in supporting it,” he said.

When pressed for details, he added, “I’m not going to say anything more than what I have just said to you.”

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said there should be a wider campaign to support the industry.

“We can take advantage of this event [the Olympics] to draw attention, but we must take advantage of other events, as well. I find it completely appalling to see all these protests in Spain, the country that has bull runs.”