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Paul versus the premier
McCartneys, Williams clash on TV
Seal slaughter compared to slave trade :rofl:
Mar. 4, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRIS MORRIS
CANADIAN PRESS
CHARLOTTETOWN—Some supporters of Canada's annual harp seal hunt grudgingly acknowledge that Paul McCartney's global reach as a megastar could spell trouble for the hunt's future.
Pictures of McCartney and his wife, Heather, frolicking with doe-eyed seal pups on ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence flashed around the world this week.
The couple's strong anti-hunt message received an even bigger boost last night when they appeared on CNN's Larry King Live for a sometimes heated debate with Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams.
And in another interview with CTV News, McCartney compared the hunt to the former slave trade.
"It was brutal and it was something that had to stop," he said, adding the same is true for Canada's seal hunt.
McCartney told King he'd like to see an international ban on the use of seal skins.
"These pups haven't even had a swim yet," the former Beatle told the CNN host during a satellite feed from a Charlottetown hotel. "They're totally reliant on their mothers. They're helpless."
Heather Mills McCartney called the 500-year-old practice "archaic, brutal and cruel," a characterization disputed by Williams.
"For the record, I don't condone, nor do the people of Newfoundland and Labrador condone, the inhumane treatment of animals," the premier said.
Williams insisted the seals are killed humanely, saying 90 per cent of them are shot, not clubbed — a claim McCartney's wife called "absolute rubbish."
The premier accused the McCartneys of being misinformed and invited them to come to Newfoundland to "learn the truth and the facts."
King had to act as a referee at several points as the debate grew heated.
Williams, who has a reputation for fiery, volatile debater, defended his actions afterwards.
"There's a point where people who don't respect Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and who don't treat us with respect, will get it back in spades from me," he said. "I certainly wasn't going to allow the McCartneys to dominate that interview."
Proponents of the hunt, including federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, have said that anti-hunt activists like the McCartneys don't understand how the hunt works and what it means to Atlantic Canadians.
Williams suggested the pop icon duo were misinformed, noting that Paul McCartney had thought his protest trip Thursday had taken him to Newfoundland, when in fact he was in Prince Edward Island and later Quebec.
"They target us because we're a smaller province and it's a smaller industry," the premier said after he emerged from a TV studio in St. John's. "They're not going to take on the beef industry. A seal pup makes a great photo op."
However, Jack Troake, a Newfoundland sealer with 55 years experience, admitted that the arrival of the McCartneys on the protest scene is a concern.
Troake has seen his share of protestors — from fur-clad B-movie stars to radical vegans — but the McCartneys are in a class of their own when it comes to star power.
"I'm certainly concerned about this lad," said the Twillingate fisherman, who can remember when French film star Brigitte Bardot caused a sensation when she showed up to protest the fishery in 1972.
Troake said sealers have a lot at stake financially.
"The only positive thing in the 2006 fishery is the seal fishery," he said.
Meanwhile, Bardot emerged from seclusion yesterday to slam the hunt. "Seal hunters are killers," Bardot told Montreal all-news channel, LCN. "Your country is a rich country and you are setting an appalling example for the world."
OK, Paul.......now go away!!
