Empty Threats from Canada: Futile Efforts to Stop the Inevitable

9^thApril 2009

As the adoption of the proposed EU regulation to ban the trade in seal products draws closer to its conclusion, the Canadian government appears to be throwing its weight around in a last-minute attempt to derail the impetus towards a robust ban in Europe. It has suggested that it will make a formal complaint to the World Trade Organisation if the EU institutions do what the majority of their citizens want them to do—that is to say, ban the trade in seal products in the EU. In practice, Canada has never made such complaints against other countries that have banned such trade.

	Trade bans are already in place in US, Mexico and several European countries. © HSI/Glover

In 1972, the United States created the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which established in the USA what the EU is now trying to achieve—a complete ban on trade in seal products, with a special exemption for traditional communities. Canada did not and does not support the U.S. rules; yet it never brought an action against the United States for this law—either under the WTO or its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Meanwhile, Mexico also has a ban. No formal Canadian complaint was registered. Belgium, Croatia, the Netherlands and Slovenia have bans. No formal WTO action has materialised there either. The same is true vis-à-vis other countries with trade bans in place.

Value of Trade

Canada is using this public threat to try to influence EU decision-makers at this crucial time by flooding their inboxes with empty threats. It is "diplomacy by intimidation," as representatives of the Commission, the Parliament and the 27 EU member states come closer to agreeing on a package that MEPs can adopt in May, to be followed soon after by ministerial endorsement, probably in June. Yet the simple fact is that the EU-Canada trade relationship is much more important to Canada than the value of the seal product trade. The trade in seal products is worth a few million euros, a tiny fraction of the larger trade relationship.

The European Commission's web site tells us this:

Trade in Goods

• EU exports of goods to Canada in 2007: €25.9 billion 

• EU imports of goods from Canada in 2007: €23.3 billion
• EU Canada goods trade is dominated by high-value goods such as machinery, transport equipment and chemicals.

The Canadian government knows that it has no popular support at home for fighting the EU because polls have shown that even Canadians support the EU's proposal to pass a ban. Canada also knows that millions of Europeans support a ban because they do not want the products of cruelty traded on their continent. Using arcane trade rules to thwart the political will of the European peoples would be deeply unpopular in Europe and could even result in broader boycotts of Canadian products. The €49.2 billion trade relationship with the EU—just like the trade relationship with the USA—is too valuable for Canada to compromise.

If the Canadian government opts to challenge the EU at the WTO, the question arises: Will it be consistent and coherent in its policy and challenge its largest trade partner, the USA, too?

Attempt to Influence

Seal pup. 2009 © HSI/Glover

For the past couple of years, the Canadian government has sent teams of people—from ministers, to ambassadors, to officials—to every corner of Europe in order to lobby. The goal has been to ensure that any legislation put forward and adopted as a result of the European Parliament's 2006 Written Declaration would allow Canada's cruel slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals annually to go on. The Written Declaration was signed by 425 MEPs.

The European Commission got the message loud and clear at the time and worked up a proposal to ban the trade. But Canadian lobbying then swayed the commission to write in an exemption that, in effect, would allow the trade to continue in seal products from countries where the statute books contain humane slaughter rules for sealing. This was deeply unsatisfactory because putting rules on the statute books is one thing, but being able to enforce and police them is quite another. The Canadian government insists that the annual slaughters on its ice floes are humane and are well-policed. Yet time and again, experts have found that this is not the case.

The Right Choice

Meanwhile, both the environment and the internal market committees of the European Parliament came back and repeated the 2006 decision. They both adopted strong positions in recent months in favour of a robust ban but one which would allow special arrangements for Inuit communities. Both parliamentary committees oppose so-called humane killing exemptions because they realise that these are impossible to implement and police effectively and would basically enable the cruel slaughter of young seals to go on in Canada. The qualified majority needed to adopt a full ban has been achieved among the 27 EU member states in the Council of Ministers. Now, the European Commission must agree to the demands of Ministers and MEPs and ensure that the ban is robust.