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Ittinuar, a former NDP and Liberal MP in the 1980s, said he and national Green leader Elizabeth May agreed that the party would support seal hunting by Inuit, even though the party opposes the sealing industry on Canada's East Coast.

"I said, 'You know what? The Inuit have got to detach themselves from that," he said of the East Coast seal hunt.

May proposed that the party amend its position to "where we push for a certification program that any seal products coming out of Nunavut will be certified," he said.

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* Work with other levels of government to find sustainable economic alternatives for sealers and their communities and provide full compensation to sealers for lost income.

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So it's the Green Party's policy to pay the seal hunters not to hunt then?

[ 10 October 2008: Message edited by: Noise ]

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Originally posted by Interested Observer:
... She's a spokesperson for the gp, her every word isn't the lay of the land.

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[quote edited since I only wish to address the second point raised]

IO: that is a difficult argument to maintain within the context of a federal campaign. The emphasis on "All the Leaders, All the Time" tends to lay even more emphasis on the pronouncements from the leader of a party. If it is any consolation, the NDP saw the same thing in the 2005/2006 campaign when Jack Layton jumped aboard the Law and Order train after the shooting of the young woman on Yonge Street (although it was even more inexcusable then, with a longer campaign and the availability of a high profile spokesperson in the person of Joe Comartin, who should have been the one addressing the issue). It is unfortunate that our various policy platforms are seemingly only projected through the lens of what the "leaders" say.

[ 10 October 2008: Message edited by: bagkitty ]

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So it's the Green Party's policy to pay the seal hunters not to hunt then?

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No and I don’t know why you’re asking this question. The hunt as I said to my knowledge can’t survive without government subsidy so these communities aren’t actually making a profit on the seal hunt. Yes? If subsidies are ended and seal hunters have no means of earning a living as with any other industry sector that ends, then retraining, reinvestment must happen. That’s NDP policy on industry sector job losses as well. At least that’s what their platform says about job losses in the energy and manufacturing sector.

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mimeguy, you realize many Inuit and Northern Dene sell seal meat commercially to make a living. Have been for a lot longer than we white folks have been here. (Obviously it was more of a trading system rather than a cash system). The Green policy of thinking they can tell First Nations what is and isn't appropriate is offensive and colonial.

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Yes I realize this is traditional and it has nothing to do with the policy. By the way she was responding to the candidate’s suggestion in regards to Inuit traditions. So we aren’t telling the Inuit or Dene what they can do in fact it is the opposite. If First Nations want to create and run a sovereign commercial industry without government subsidy then they are free to do so. My impression though of subsistence hunting has never been simply killing and consuming for personal consumption. We are talking about the difference between a sustainable local economy and a large scale international commercial industry. It is my impression that the seal hunt is not sustainable as an industry on its own and has been compared to the whaling industry.

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That GP policy is disgusting! Racist colonial thinking. If May has re-written this she has done her party a huge favor this time. Whoever wrote this policy doesn't belong in Canadian politics...

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Vaguely hysterical sounding and ouraged supporting attacks come up hollow when the statements are calmly rebutted in a diplomatic fashion. Mimeguy carries the day over all comers, and is backed up by Spector.

Greens 3 points
NDP 0 points

A less knee jerk reaction, and perhaps a less confident initial attack might have saved the NDP partisans some embarassment here. NDP'rs generally were shown to be ignorant on the sailent issues and too quick to accord with the intitial attack even though they were not well informed on the issue, sounding overly aggressive, and this counted for a lot of the embarassment points they collected here.

[ 13 October 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]