Seeing Cleary now

So what, pray tell, was the enormous mortal sin committed by Ryan Cleary?

Well, bless him, Father Newf, for he has sinned: our journalist-turned-politician actually dared to ask a question about the future of that most motherhood of industries, the Newfoundland seal hunt.

Just imagine. You wouldn't know but he'd slept with the enemy, crawled right in the sack with Brigitte Bardot (not a pretty sight for the imagination to behold, I know: the former sex kitten, now a senior citizen, playing the cougar with the middle-aged Cleary under faux fur-lined sheets).

But, as we all know, any souls in this smiling, frozen land of ours bold enough to even mumble a skeptical word or two about sealing has obviously gone over to the dark side; next thing you know, Cleary will suggest the "Ode to Newfoundland" is sappy, that salt meat and cabbage and cod tongues are not fit to eat, that the word "Newfie" is adorable, that "The Republic of Doyle" is the corniest show on television and a townie conspiracy, that Great Big Sea is over-rated, that "Sonny's Dream" has been done to death, that there should be no food fishery, that Newfoundland dogs are mean-spirited, that licences should be required for trouting, and that followers of Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare should be canonized.

As expected, the amoral crowd of anti-sealing loons exploited Cleary's words.

But local politicians, especially our invisible man in Ottawa, Peter Penashue, took to the low road as well and played the motherhood card for all it was worth, and were out to have Cleary declared a non-Newfoundander (the timing of Penashue's condemnation of Cleary was ironic, given the fact that the minister's comments were made around the same time he was hiding away, slithering away, from people in St. John's wanting to talk to him about his government's loathsome decision to cut search and rescue jobs here).

Now I'm not in the habit of coming to the defence of politicians - most have their vocal batteries permanently in recharge mode, and can shovel the you-know-what with nary a break - but it should be repeatedly noted that Cleary was merely reacting to an online commentary by "Fisheries Broadcast" host John Furlong, who himself had simply wondered aloud whether incessant attacks by the anti-sealing lobby had placed the industry in a position where its demise was unpreventable. (Furlong has spent his entire career raising the bar on journalistic edginess, so it shouldn't have come as any surprise to those who know his work that he's removing the pink, white and green wrapping off several normally untouchable and iconic issues in the fishery.)

In any case, what's wrong with discussing the future of the seal fishery?

For one thing, no topic, no matter how closely protected by the Newfoundland bosom in which it rests, should be off-limits to journalists and commentators. Debate the smell of manure on a warm evening in Torbay if you feel such a discussion has merit.

Now, my participation in any discussion of the seal hunt would begin with the suggestion that it would be a colossal mistake to simply end the seal fishery, to force the issue, to surrender to those unprincipled do-gooders who have maligned Newfoundlanders for the past 40 years.

I've had the advantage (some might say misfortune) of having met and interviewed way too many of those anti-sealing zealots over the years, from St. Anthony to the ice fields to New York and Washington, and have had more exposure to that lot than the average journalist. And they were, they are, insufferable.

So, on principle alone, it would be a sin to raise the white flag to that crowd, to declare the seal fishery dead and buried.

Besides, even if the market for pelts continues to sink further into the international septic tank, making it uneconomical for sealers to ply their trade, there would always have to be a cull.

The anti-sealing do-gooders naturally twist and downplay scientific evidence about the amount of fish seals eat, but common sense and graphic video showing seals attacking cod in harbours would lead to the conclusion that they gobble up just about anything that swims in the sea.

So they can't be allowed to multiply year after year. Pretty soon, they'll be coming into the harbour here in Flatrock where I live and making their slow way up to my driveway for a suntan on the deck. I'll be forced to grab my shotgun and eliminate their cuteness and create a meal of flippers with one pull of the trigger.

If there is to be a cull, though, how about finding an innovative way to market the meat? If the negotiations with the Chinese for seal meat don't pan out (so to speak), then find a way to distribute the meat to countries where people are starving to death (surely there must be experts in that field who can give legs to such an enterprise).

How could the anti-sealing types protest if they knew the starving youngsters were being kept alive with Newfoundland seal meat?

Those, of course, are the types of questions that can only be raised properly if there is, in fact, an open and blunt discussion about the future of sealing.

Hardly traitorous.

Bob Wakeham has spent more than 30 years as a journalist in Newfoundland and Labrador. He can be reached by email at bwakeham@nl.rogers.com.