Bears, Seals, and Bad Omens

You know it's not a good omen for the seal hunt when Vladimir Putin, of all people, wants to save the seals.

Putin showed a bizarre sense of ironic humour when he labelled the seal hunt a "bloody industry" that "should have been banned a long time ago." I guess military invasions or arms exporting don't count as bloody industries, then. On Wednesday the Russian government announced a ban on the hunting of all harp seals less than one year old.

According to the NP:
"The move came as a surprise to Thomas Hedderson, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Newfoundland and Labrador, whose province is preparing for the beginning of its annual hunt. Harp seal reserves off the coast there number well more than five million and are increasing, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
"I'm not as familiar with the Russian hunt as I am with our own, but they're clearly having problems we are not experiencing," he said.
"Our hunt is one of the best-managed and most-regualted [sic] industries you'll see anywhere. It's sustainable, it's viable and it's humane."

As with the naked Spanish seal hunt protestors, this latest development has nothing to do with federalism, Harper, or the never-ending ABC war. It has nothing to do with whether NL has its own foreign policy.

I'm sure some open-line caller will insist that DW could have changed Vlad's mind if DW was President of the Republic of Newfoundland rather than a mere provincial premier. But sooner or later, the politicians and public in NL are going to have to come to grips with the full international scope of the opposition to the seal hunt.

I suspect it will be later. What will happen sooner is that the whole mess will be conveniently blamed on Ottawa. What will happen sooner is that DW will use the seal hunt as a political tool, as another way to attack Harper. What will happen sooner is that the public discussion will devolve into dark tales of yet another federalist conspiracy.

It would be nice to have an open and frank discussion of the geopolitical context of the seal hunt. But I suspect I'll be cashing in my old-age cheque before that happens.

Here's the link to the NP story:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1403213

P.S. And what kind of juvenile, asinine comment is this: "I don't know where he's coming from, whether it's a personal point of view or his country's view," Mr. Hedderson said. Does every cabinet minister in NL have an implant that forces them to utter such DW-style jibberish in public? God knows how they must speak behind closed doors. I guess it's never dawned on them that not all politics is personal.

Here's some geopolitics 101: Vlad is the PM. He's a shrewd politician. He has made a political calculation: the extremely small economic hit Russia will take for the ban is far outweighed by the political gain. His invasion of Georgia last summer, coupled with his natural gas power-play this winter, really pissed off the Europeans; so what better way (and what cheaper way) to curry favour with the seal-loving Europeans than to come out against the seal hunt? That's it. Got it?


Media Update:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/world/europe/19seal.html?ref=world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/19/seals-hunting-russia-ban

Unexpected Crime Waves

This morning Slate has an interesting Foreign Policy story on unexpected crime waves:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4751

The social impact of the global recession is being felt in all kinds of places in all kinds of ways. And despite the drumbeat of DW and the Sunshine Band, the impact will be felt in NL as surely as it's being felt everywhere from Calgary to Tampa to Moscow to Tokyo.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we know little at this point about the ramifications of the economic meltdown in Alberta, where Ralph Klein's severage package is generating criticism while foreclosure rates increase:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090313.wklein0313/BNStory/National/home http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090313.wsubprimefactbox14/BNStory/Front

As for NL, the effects of Alberta's recession will be twofold.

First, many migrant (and even semi-permanent) NL workers will return from Alberta. They may bring some money, but they will be looking for work and may have to rely on social services once EI runs out. Meanwhile, the communities that once relied on Alberta remittances will face much less local revenue.

Second, surplus workers in NL will no longer be able to rely on Alberta. Once the famous contractor shortage in boom-town St. John's gets filled, the local labour market will see significant deterioration while, for the first time in a generation, Alberta will no longer offer a viable alternative labour market for young people

So what will happen? Anyone's guess at this point, though at least the Tely (whose editors seem to be reading Orwellianspin) is asking some important quesitons:
http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=231828&sc=80
http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=231834&sc=86

It's hard to imagine a Japanese-style outbreak of geriatric crime but, at some point somewhere along the line, the lineups at Costco will get shorter. At some point, the supply of $250k condos will outstrip Townie demand. At some point, VOCM could report that what's going on in the rest of the world could affect NL.

For the enraged separatists who agitate so ceaselessly for nationhood, it's a curious fact that they themselves ignore what's going on in other nations. It's a curious fact that Newfoundland nationalists seem ignorant of a global crisis that has, according to the National Post, dealt a blow to many political movements, including Scottish nationalism: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1387642