Green Party changes stance on Inuit bowhead whale hunt

Hunters in Kangiqsujuaq butcher Nunavik’s second bowhead whale in August 2009. The Green Party of Canada says it now supports the indigenous hunt of the bowhead, since discovering its status is “threatened” and not “critically endangered.” (FILE PHOTO)

The Green Party of Canada has updated it policy on whaling, saying it now supports the Aboriginal subsistence hunt of the bowhead whale.

That’s after an exchange which took place last week between party leader Elizabeth May and a few Iqaluit residents on the social media site Twitter.

It all started after Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq made an outburst Oct. 21 in the House of Commons Oct. during an NDP member’s call for an inquiry into the collapse of Newfoundland’s cod fishery.

May, also MP for Saanich Gulf Islands, took to Twitter to complain, tweeting that Aglukkaq heckled the MP member by shouting out “seals.”

“Since no one was attacking sealers, or sealing, there was no provocation for her rude outbursts,” tweeted May. “It was an ignorant display [from] a woman I usually respect.”

Iqaluit Twitter users noticed May’s comments.

The online conversation that followed has led the Green Party to update and correct its policy on the status of the bowhead whale and the Inuit bowhead whale hunt.

In the Green Party’s Vision Green, the party’s core policy document, the Green Party outlines its opposition of the commercial hunt of seal, although it says supports the indigenous seal hunt.

That led some tweeters to ask May to clarify the party’s position on Canada’s bowhead whale hunt.

Last week, the party’s policy said that it opposed hunting of all bowhead whales, including those harvested as part of indigenous hunts.

That, the policy noted, is due to the bowhead whale’s status as “critically endangered.”

“Seems to me the GPC website said it doesn’t support any, even sustainable aboriginal hunts,” Iqaluit resident Aaron Watson wrote to May on Twitter Oct. 22, adding that the World Wildlife Federation lists the species as “threatened.”

But, he added that “bowheads have been rebounding for a long time, thanks to the wise management of Inuit hunters and HTOs.”

May responded that the party’s Vision Green is under continual review and managed by volunteers, but that she would ensure the section was updated.

“When written the bowhead was listed as critically endangered,” May said in a tweet. “We are updating that section due to change in status.”

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada was upgraded from “threatened” to “special concern” in 2009 when the most recent status report was released.

That’s because bowhead whale populations look much healthier than scientists once determined.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans estimates of the bowhead whale populations jumped from 345 in 2000 to 3,000 in 2003, after aerial surveys, then to 7,309 in 2007 and, then, in 2008, to 14,400.

The DFO’s most recent stock assessment from three years ago says this latest number of 14,400 is only a “partial estimate” and that there could actually be as many as 43,105 bowhead whales.

Now, the GPC’s Vision Green says the party will “oppose all hunting of bowhead whales, excluding Canadian Aboriginal subsistence hunting, due to the threatened state of this species.”

Johnny Kasudluak, an Inuk candidate who ran for the Green Party in Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou in the last federal election, distanced himself from one Green Party position during his campaign: the one that condemns the commercial seal hunt.

Although Nunavik’s hunt is for subsistence needs — which the Greens support — Kadsudluak said he wanted to show solidarity with some Inuit in Nunavut who hunt the animal commercially.

But he took no separate position on the party’s position on whaling.