Canadians "snubbed" by MPs 02/04/2007 00:00

2 April 2007

AMSTERDAM – The Dutch MPs did not even have the courtesy to meet with us, Canadian Minister for Trade and Rural Development in Newfoundland and Labrador Trevor Taylor said angrily on Monday. He is part of a Canadian delegation touring Europe to try and stop a ban on seal hunting.

The Netherlands hardly imports any seal fur and only very little seal oil. Still the delegation thought it was important to visit the Netherlands.

The Canadians find it incomprehensible that the Netherlands is working on a ban on seal fur, while a million muskrats are being killed for fur in the Netherlands each year.

The Dutch MPs are basing their decisions on emotional aspects and morality, said Taylor. He asks why the Netherlands thinks it has the right to do that.

The Dutch MPs have received a lot of information from the Canadians recently, on how the seal population is kept in check for instance. But a spokesperson of the Canadian embassy says that this information has been ignored.

The legislation proposed in the Netherlands makes an exception for traditional seal hunting. The Canadians maintain however that this doesn't help traditional hunters. If the market for seal fur collapses, the traditional hunters will suffer as well, they say.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2007]

Subject: Dutch news