THE APPOINTMENT of
Romeo LeBlanc as Governor
General is enough to make
every environmentalist, ani-
mai-lover and believer in
democracy throw up.

For 10 years as fisheries minister,
he was the embodiment of the piti-
less, hak-a-pik-wielding brutes who
used to bash newbom Harp seal
pups out on the ice floes before the
more civilized countries of Europe
stepped in and forced the savage
Canucks to stop beating up on baby
seals,

Romeo LeBlanc was the heartless
decision-maker at whose discretion
hundreds of thousands of pups
wouid be clubbed each spring.

He was the point man for the
sealing industry, the guy who
defended the hunt, both within
Cabinet, and in the media.

If anyone was looking for sheer
volume of blood on any politician's
hands in this country, look no further
‘than our brand new governor gener-
‘al.

It was only seal blood, you say.
What's the deal?

Well, having looked down from a
helicopter off the coast of Labrador
and seen the blood streaked from
horizon to horizon across the
icepacks in the wake of the sealing
boats, I can say the sight was enough
to chill the soul.

LeBlanc insisted that he'd never
visited the seal hunt, and as far as I
know, he never did go out there to
see for himself what an atrocity he
was perpetuating.

T suspect Romeo didn’t want to
know. What did he care?

He was enjoying all the perks of
being in Cabinet. Why worry about a
little thing like a mass slaughter of
wild animals?

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vA Great Stock of
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Mon.-Gat. 9:30am-5: 30pm
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But forget the anima! cruelty
aspect, if that’s not your concern.
Perhaps you are a believer of the
rule of law, the faimess of our vaunt-
ed judicial system, which is sup-
posed to be free of political interfer-
ence.

Romeo LeBlanc was the author,
you may recall, of cae of the most
anti-democratic pieces of legislation
ever to be cooked up in this country,
an Orwellian bundle of regulations
called the Seal Protection Act, which
were designed to protect the seal
hunters from people who were trying
to save the seals.

The regulations rin so roughshod
over civil rights that they were chal-
lenged in the Supreme Court, which
eventually struck the entire Seal
Protection Act down us being uncon-
stitutional.

Tt no Jonger exists in law, having
been consigned to the trash heap of
totalitarian legislation like the War
Measures Act.

That was our brand new
Governor General’s handiwork,
LeBlanc at one point cordoned off
the entire Western Atlantic to the
prying eyes of media from around
the world, but had to make a humili-
ating retreat when two American
congressmen arrived, demanding to
take a look at what kind of a horror
show the Canadians were allowing
to happen out there, guarded by fed-
eral fisheries officers, PR flunkies

“-and RCMP,

During the seal wars of the mid-
to late ‘70s, we used to call him
Romeo The Blank, because whenev-

STRICTLY PERSONAL

er we tried to talk to him or get
information from him, we drew a
blank. -

It was thanks to one of Romeo's
flunkies, however, that ! got my first
close-up picture of how power works
at the federal level in Canada, and it
was anything but pretty.

I was sitting in a motel room in
St. Anthony, Newfoundland, in
1976, talking to Charles Friend,
Romeo's press officer. Representing
Greenpeace at the time, I had to tell
him what we planned to do to apply
for permission under the Seal
Protection Act to get out to the ice.

One day I finished my negotiat-
ing session with Friend at about 11
am. By 2.30 p.m. that same day,
after he had made his phone call to

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Ottawa, a new regulation (in this
case banning the spraying of pups
with green dye) was passed by
order-in-council.

Just like that, one call from a
flunky to the minister's office, and
the Cabinet had burped a new law
into existence! Democracy? Huh?
What's that?

{ started bringing a lawyer in
with me after that who would come
up with valid legal complaints, but
he was laughed at.

As Charles Friend gleefully
pointed out, the act was enforced “at
the discretion of the minister,” and
therefore the government could
break its own regulations any time it
wanted, while tuming around and
arresting us virtually at will.

Indeed, we were arrested. The
charges never stuck, and [ don't
think anyone really thought they
would. It was just a convenient way
of sidelining us until the media went
away. ILis the standard sort of legal-
istic trick that authoritarian regimes
who don’t care about the rights of
their citizens use all the time to
crush opposition to their policies.

So, not only was Romeo The
Blank responsible for prolonging the
seal slaughter far past the point

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where most serious scientists were
saying it should have been stopped,
he was quick to trammel all over the
rights of Canadiazs who didn't hap-
pen to agree with him.

If the Governor General of
Canada is somehow supposed to be
a revered figure, the choice of
Romeo the Mad Seal Butcher is
wildly at odds with the supposedly
environment-sensitive era of the
‘90s, Naming him Governor General
is like giving the job to a kind of
ecological Jabba the Hutt.

It was interesting to see the reac-
tion in the House of Commons to
The Blank’s appointment. Lucien
Bouchard babbled stupidly about the
history of the Acadians, a totally -
irrelevant aside.

But Preston Manning put his fin-
ger on it: The choice does nothing to
stem the slide in public respect for
the office of Governor General.

As fisheries minister he was
power-crazed, dictatorial and ecolog-
ically illiterate. He shamed all
Canadians by his bizarre behavior in
office.

Oh yes, he'll make a great
Governor General. Anyone for flip-
per pie, sealskin boots, or perhaps a
cuppa warm blood?

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