A Canadian Question

Yesterday, the "Ontario Today" program on CBC Radio One included the question, "Is the seal hunt any of our business in Ontario?" (A 30-day archive of their call-in show is available here.)

I have felt that I should have something to say about the seal hunt, since it's one of the ways in which Canada is consistently in the international news. The seal hunt occurs in Atlantic Canada, by the way--the Canadian Sealers Association represents the industry in Newfoundland, the Quebec North Shore, and the Magdalen Islands, according to its website.

The seal hunt is part of the Janus-face of Canadian culture, best demonstrated by extreme statements. One half: Canada is a polite cultural mosaic that justifiably prides itself on its peacekeeping role around the world. The other half: Canada is barbaric, with a history that includes World War II internment camps for Japanese and Italian citizens, unfair treatment of natives and Metis, and reckless exploitation of natural resources ranging from fur-producing animals to trees and minerals.

Understand that I know that the truth about Canada and Canadians doesn't lie in these two extremes.

And perhaps I should have something to say about the seal hunt, but I don't.

What I can comment on is the unique Canadian nature of the question, "Is the seal hunt any of our business in Ontario?"

You'd never see a similar question asked in the U.S., because the answer is a given: "Of course it's our business. We're all in this together."

For example, when a state like Iowa or California recognizes gay marriage, U.S. citizens in Oklahoma and Oregon and Idaho and Florida don't say "Oh well. Not our business." They don't even consider that as an option. In fact, people from Idaho may well have gone to Iowa to demonstrate for or against that state's legislation.

In Canada, however, the answer isn't a given. In fact, the attitude is more likely to be something like, "We're all in this apart."

Yesterday, that attitude was less evident than I've seen at other times, possibly because the seal hunt raises strong responses (as does gay marriage legislation). About the seal hunt, the comments I heard yesterday tended to echo Donne's "no man is an island; entire of itself" meditation, which I decree that we now all understand to apply to women also. Many of the callers expressed opinions through the lens of their own experience as hunters and trappers; others expressed disagreement with the hunt. But nobody that I heard said it wasn't Ontario's business.

Officially, however, provinces operate quite separately. Quebec has its own immigration policies. Each province has its own health care system--and when New Brunswick has consistent problems with its pathology labs, Ontario residents don't seem to adopt the issue as their own.

So is it important to Canadians that the seal hunt happens only in Atlantic Canada? Perhaps to Newfoundlanders, but apparently not to Ontarians. Which brings up a very interesting question to pose in Atlantic Canada: "Do you care what others across Canada think about the seal hunt?"