Stopping The Canadians

Upsetting Canadians is one of those things that just doesn't feel right. They sit up there above the United States with their maple syrup and not actually doing much. They occasionally throw out a Michael J Fox or an Alanis Morissette but generally they seem decent, law abiding and the complete opposite of their more boisterous southern neighbour.
That said, even the most welcoming of countries have deep, dark secrets and Canada's is that some of them do have a fondness for smashing in the skulls of baby seals and skinning them alive. Oh Canada, its always the quiet ones.
Great news then that Europe has began proceedings to halt the clubbing to death of hundreds of thousands of seals every year, when MEPs voted overwhelmingly to ban trading in seal products.
The decision to outlaw the seal fur trade will hit mainly Canada which will lose exports of several million pounds to the EU with the consequence being the overdue collapse of the seal fur market.
The taste for seal fur pelts has been rapidly dwindling over the past decade with the number of seals Canada kill reduced by almost two thirds. They slaughtered less than a quarter of the number of seals this year compared to last because trading bans in other countries were destroying the market for their ill-gotten seal products.
The vote was wonderfully timed as it coincided with the start of the EU-Canada summit in Prague and there must have been a loud gnashing of Ottawan teeth when the EU director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said today's vote 'hammered the final nail in the coffin of the sealing industry's market' and would mean 'a complete collapse of Canada's commercial seal hunt may now be inevitable.'
Let's hope so and Canada can stop being the target for our ire and go back to doing what it does best. Whatever that is.