HALIFAX — Canada’s largest Inuit organization has succeeded in stalling a European Union ban on imported seal products, marking a setback for animal welfare activists who argue the ban is needed to stop an inhumane slaughter.
The unexpected court ruling came a day before the ban was to take effect.
The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents Canada’s 53,000 Inuit, learned Thursday that the European Court of Justice had agreed to impose a delay because the court needed more time to consider the group’s case.
The group and several other native and hunting groups — including Inuit from Greenland — filed a legal action with the court in January, claiming the ban was both illegal and immoral.
Even though the EU ban exempts the trade in seal products from aboriginal groups, the Inuit believe their markets will plummet along with the rest of the commercial industry if the ban comes into force.
“It is in the interest of the proper administration of justice that the status quo . . . be maintained,” the court said in a written ruling released Thursday.
Mary Simon, president of Tapiriit Kanatami, welcomed the decision.
“I can only hope that the EU court will determine that the ban and its so-called Inuit exemption are illegal,” she said in a statement. “That would be a fitting conclusion to this totally unjustified action by the European Parliament.”
A spokeswoman for the group said it remains unclear when the court will reconvene.
News of the decision from Luxembourg came only hours after Prime Minister Stephen Harper denounced the EU ban, saying the legislation is a “disgrace” because it is based on “no rational facts.”
Harper, in Miramichi, N.B., for a funding announcement, said the ban discriminates against Canadian sealers, who are hardworking people of modest means.
“This is flagrant discrimination against the Canadian seal industry, against Canadian sealers . . . people who are doing animal husbandry, no differently than many other industries,” he said after the announcement.
“It is a disgrace that they’re treated this way in some countries based on no rational facts or information whatsoever. We strongly object to the decision. We will continue to defend our sealers.”
The prime minister’s blunt comments came minutes after federal officials held a technical briefing in Ottawa to announce the government’s next move in its battle against the ban.
The senior officials confirmed Ottawa will ask the World Trade Organization this fall to establish a dispute settlement panel that would consider whether the EU ban complies with WTO rules.
The bureaucrats said even if Canada succeeded in persuading a panel that the ban breaks the rules, it could take more than three years for the WTO to take action and the EU to respond.
Canada’s East Coast sealing industry has steadily dwindled in recent years amid a global recession, vocal animal rights protests and the looming ban, approved by the EU’s 27 member states on July 27, 2009.
Animal welfare advocates said the temporary court setback ultimately won’t change the fate of the seal hunt.
“The EU court may wish to look more closely at the ban but the court of public opinion around the world is clear: the seal slaughter is uniquely cruel and no market wants the pelts,” said Dan Mathews of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
“At the end of the day, this is a consumer issue and seal skin has a worse stigma with the public than herpes.”
Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of the Canadian wing of Humane Society International, challenged the prime minister’s argument that Canadian sealers face discrimination, arguing that the EU ban applies to all commercial seal hunts, citing the commercial hunt in Namibia.
“The only government that is showing a profound lack of information about the commercial sealing industry is the Canadian government,” she said in an interview.
She said the ban was put in place because Europeans made it clear to their politicians they are opposed to “trading in products from slaughters that are inherently inhumane.”
The animal welfare group released video images Thursday that it says clearly show hunters treating seals inhumanely during the hunt last spring off Newfoundland.
Aldworth said the group documented 250 violations, including instances of hunters failing to ensure seals were dead before skinning.
She played down the significance of the ban’s suspension, saying it was only temporary and does not necessarily prevent the ban from taking effect before next year’s commercial hunt.
Canada exported about $5.5 million worth of seal products to the EU in 2006 when the price of pelts peaked at over $100, but the market has been cut in half in recent years with about $2.5 million worth sent to the region in 2008.
While there are about 6,000 licensed seal hunters on the East Coast, only a few hundred took part in last season’s hunt. About 67,000 seals were taken — most of them harp seals off Newfoundland — even though the catch limit was about 350,000.
The Newfoundland government says the industry injected about $24 million into the provincial economy in 2008.
The federal officials said the impact of the pending ban remains unclear because about 90 per cent of Canada’s pelts are shipped from Europe to Russia and Norway, which are not subject to the ban.
Aldworth said the ban would likely kill the Canadian industry, suggesting that Ottawa’s claim that Russia buys most of the pelts is not backed up by trade data.
Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said the EU ban is a misguided move because the Canadian seal hunt is sustainable, humane and closely monitored.
Shea’s department changed marine mammal regulations last year, instructing hunters to confirm lack of consciousness and bleed out of seals before skinning them.
“The European Parliament has sided with radical animal rights lobbyists and opted to ignore our arguments,” she said while in St. John’s, N.L. “We will continue our efforts to counter the misinformation campaign by the anti-seal hunt lobby groups.”