[LINK] "Half of sealers want federal buyout: poll"

[rfmcdonald]

Might the model of the tobacco farmers of southern Ontario, bought out so they could go on and earn themselves a viable living, be relevant to the sealers of Atlantic Canada? Certainly sealing is a physically hard and potentially quite dangerous traditional industry with deteriorating prospects. Polls with larger numbers of polled might settle the question decisively.

A recent poll reveals half of Newfoundland sealers surveyed support a federal buyout of the industry, which would involve fishermen and vessel owners being compensated for their sealing licences, and money being invested in economic alternatives for affected communities.

The poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid on behalf of the Humane Society International/Canada, an animal rights group that opposes the hunt, said half of the 181 sealers it polled by telephone between Dec. 7, 2009 and Jan. 24, 2010 were in favour of a buyout. The poll is considered accurate plus or minus 7.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

But the Canadian Sealers Association does not see that as a reasonable option and disputes the poll's accuracy.

"There's 11,000 licensed sealers in Newfoundland and Labrador and I don't know where they got the sealers," said Frank Pinhorn, executive director of the Canadian Sealers Association in Newfoundland. "I don't think their base for doing this survey is representative in any meaningful percentage."

The humane society said the poll indicates the sealers' desire to take an alternate route instead of receiving government subsidies to keep the industry viable.

"The Canadian government claims they are supporting sealers by promoting and subsidizing the sealing industry," Humane Society executive director Rebecca Aldworth said in a news release. "Yet this poll reveals broad support among sealers for a federal buyout of the sealing industry -- a solution that would allow Canada to gracefully exit a controversy that has haunted us for five decades."