The defeat of proposed bans on commercial sealing and the international polar bear trade gives some welcome breathing space to Inuit and other Arctic hunting peoples—at least for now.

The defeat of proposed bans on commercial sealing and the international polar bear trade gives some welcome breathing space to Inuit and other Arctic hunting peoples—at least for now.
Northerners shouldn’t worry that Canada will abandon its challenge to the EU’s seal-trade ban in favour of a free-trade deal with the EU, but they should worry instead about the damage the ban has done to the very idea of Inuit as economic actors in the modern marketplace.
Senator Mac Harb’s bill to end the seal hunt provides us an opportunity to look at the international political economy of the seal trade—with emphasis on the political.