For the first time in ‘my life I found myself last

week wanting to join a separatist party, break

away from Canada.

That's how appalled I was
by the decision of “our”
government. in Ottawa to
vote, along with Russia and
Japan, in favoring of a con-
tinuation of the slaughter of
whales on the highsseas. ,

In the wake of the annual .
meeting of the International
Whaling Commission, which
saw Canada. sucking up to
Japan over resource deals by
casting a ballot in favor of
the Japanese whaling in-
dustry, the only. question for
Canadians is: has the federai
government «totally lost
touch with public opinion? -

Find. me 100 people
-between ere and Ottawa
who are in favor of the con-
tinuation, of whaling by
Russian and Japan. I doubt
that youcan. ~

Why, then, does Fisheries
Minister Romeo Leblanc
persist in a Chamerlain-like
policy of appeasement of the
two nations doing the most
the world’s

could: offer. for the decision
to ‘instruct ‘the Canadian
delegation. to vote against a
whaling moratorium being
proposed by the U.S. and

4 . among others, was
that Canada didn’t want to
force Japan and Russia out
of the IWC, because then
they would simply go ahead
and take all the whales they
want.

Nonsense and lies!

’ The Japanese have been
muttering for years that they
would quit the IWC if it
made any move whatsoever |
to curb the activities of their
massive mechanized whaling
fleet.

Yet cach time a restriction
was implemented, Japan
complied. And = would

continue to do so. After all,
both England and U:S.
threatened that if Japan did

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not obey, they would bar
Japanese fishing vessels from

within their. 200-mile-limit

fishing zones.

The Japanese also know
that the U.S:.Congress could
apply any number-of sanc-
tion that would quickly force
adherence to ‘any IWC
ordered plan to save the
surviving whales.

As for the Russians, the
commissars in the fisheries
branch of the Kremlin have
stated that they will stay in
the whaling business exactly
as long as the Japanese on
the grounds that if they quit,
and the Japanese don’t, the
Japanese would simply
scoop up what would -have
been the Russian share of
the total quota.

And of course demonstra-
tions against whaling are
pretty much out of the

uestion in Moscow, aren't
they?

The political reality is that
Japan manages to avoid
serious pressures to quit
whaling — that is, economic
pressures mainly from the
U.S. — by hiding behind the
shield of ligitimacy offered
by the IWC. If the IWC
ordered Japan to stop, and it
didn’t, the fat would be in
the fire.

Don’t underestimate the
power of the conservation
lobby in the U.S.

But they can’t make any
real moves so long as

whaling is

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obstensibly
okayed by an international
body such as the IWC.

Here’s where Canada
comes in. By voting along
with Japan, “our” repre-
sentatives help to prop up
the illusion that whaling is
somehow orderly and
scientific and that everything
is under rational
management. It ain't. Not by
a dangerously long shot.

And so we help to perpe-
trate the holocaust in the
oceans that is leading
inexorably to the extinction
of the largest creature ever
to appear on this planet.

Is this my country going
“along with the deal, just so
the cash-flow charts in a
Japanese conglomerate can
look rosy for one more year?
Is this my country casually
practising brinkmanship
with evolution, while the
whales themselves tremble
on the edge of oblivion?

No, it can’t be the country
I'm thinking of, otherwise
¥m sure I would have met
someone in it who wanted
the whale slaughter to
continue.

Come on, Leblanc! What
kind of deal did you make
with the Japanese? What did
you sell “our” vote for? Was
it coal? Or are you still trying
to flog them a CANDU
nuclear reactor?

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