Seals, Stigma and Survival

The slideshow below shows images of the comments by Canadian-based sources submitted in 2024 to the public consultations process for the fitness check of the EU seal product ban. The purpose of the fitness check is to:

assess if the rules in place remain fit for purpose, focusing on their socio-economic impact and their impact on seal populations.

The consultation process ran from 15 May 2024 – 07 August 2024.

The following slideshow includes comments submitted from Canadian-based contributors for consideration to the EU seal trade ban fitness check review. There are many pro-regulatory review comments from various levels of government and government departments, Indigenous organisations, community groups and associations, as well as members of the general public (some with personal identifying information and some anonymous).

There are also many comments in support of the seal product ban in its current for, with some comments even calling into question Indigenous/Inuit seal hunting. One commenter (F3478775) states: “this has nothing to do with the Indigenous communities, this has everything to do with white fishermen and women going out and killing babies on the ever disappearing ice floes.” Another commenter (F3475476) who claims to live in Nunavut suggest Inuit shouldn’t be looking to seals as an economic avenue and instead: “Inuit have huge opportunities in other area which they should take advantage of if they wish for economic opportunities. A great many positions are available only to Inuit with the Government of Nunavut and are current vacant.”

As the comments in the slideshow illustrate, many of the anti-sealing and pro-EU seal product ban comments have a number of commonalities with slight variations of comments about sealing being an “apex predator”, the contributor being supporters of “native wildlife” and “sealers failing to ensure animals were dead in 66 percent of cases” (which ref F3479273 gives a HSI link as the origin of this statistic). The number of similarities in phrasing of comments and specific use of the 66 percent statistic, for example, are suggestive of some level of coordinated effort to submit feedback to the consultation process.

A number of the contributors also included attachments with their feedback. Below are some of the attachments.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council of Canada also provided the EU a document detailing their feedback on the EU ban, having signposted the document in the public consultation.

Indigenous Women in Canada also submitted a feedback document to the public consultation process.

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Author and information compiled by Danita Catherine Burke

Methodology: Screen shots of public consultation comments and downloadable attachments were obtained from the “Trade in seal products – fitness check of EU rules” public consultation feedback. The information is open access. You can find out more about the consultation process here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14031-Trade-in-seal-products-fitness-check-of-EU-rules/public-consultation_en.

Key search terms used: “Canada”; “Inuit Circumpolar”

When scanning through all the comments submitted to the consultation, feedback from ICC and the Inuvialuit were seen but they didn’t come up on the “Canada” search though they are labelled as Canada for country of origin when found. These items were subsequently located using the search filter term “Inuit Circumpolar”. Similarly, a comment reportedly submitted by Jen Shears was noticed and flagged during a general scan of all the comments submitted to the consultation (F3489987). When an attempt was made to locate this comment using the search terms “Jen Shears”, “Indigenous”, “Indigenous Women”, “Indigenous Woman in Canada”, “Indigenous Women in Canada” but the comment did not appear. It was also not locatable using the feedback reference number (F3489987).

Observation: There appears to be issues with the EU website consultation feedback search filter; sometimes it does not display comments that would be expected using search terms like “Canada” for content that is labelled as of Canadian origin when located through other means. As such, the searches performed and confirmation displayed in this project’s website “Comments provided to the “Trade in seal products – fitness check of EU rules” 2024 public consultations” series may be missing content submitted for consideration during the consultation period.