Nunavut MLAs pass EU booze boycott motion

If Fred Schell and other MLAs get their way, the Nunavut Liquor Commission will not be able to order EU-made products like this. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut MLAs passed a motion March 11 that calls on the GN to order that the Nunavut Liquor Commission impose a moratorium on its purchase of alcohol products from European Union member states, to protest the EU’s import ban on seal products.

All seven cabinet members in attendance abstained from voting on the motion, put forward by Baffin South MLA Fred Schell and seconded by Iqaluit West MLA Paul Okailik.

All nine regular MLAs said yes to Schell’s motion.

In defence of his proposal, Schell said he knows French wine makers will not go out business if the GN stops buying their products.

But he said the Nunavut boycott is an important symbolic act.

“For example, I recently noted with pride that the parliamentary restaurant in Ottawa now has seal meat on its menu,” Schell said. “We need to show that we are equally determined to express our outrage at the decision of the European Union.”

The EU seal product ban, which came into effect Aug. 20, 2010, offers an exemption to furs hunted traditionally by Inuit from Canada and Greenland, but bars them from large-scale commerce with the 27 EU member states in skins, oils or meat.

Schell said Nunavummiut are not prevented from buying or possessing EU liquor products, because they can still obtain import permits from the Liquor Commission and order EU-made booze from Ottawa, Montreal or Yellowknife.

The only difference will be that the GN will not be doing the selling, he said.

Regular MLAs were not swayed from supporting the motion by Premier Eva Aariak, who urged them not to vote in favour of the motion.

“Although it is clear that the European Union has little respect or understanding of our culture or ways, this is no reason why we have to lower ourselves to that level of debate,” she said.

Aariak said the motion could be interpreted as a violation of the World Trade Organization’s general agreement on tariffs and trade, of which Canada is a signatory, because it discriminates against EU products based on their origins.

She also said the motion may violate an agreement between the European Economic Community and Canada on trade and commerce in alcoholic beverages.

And she said the motion may hurt the federal government’s recent efforts to overturn the EU seal products ban.

Canada and Norway have each launched legal challenges against it, through official complaints to the World Trade Organization, the group that sets the rules for world trade.

“One of the principles of good government is that a government should not, through its decisions, expose itself to areas of potential liability or make decisions which break existing laws,” Aariak said.

Schell said he recognizes that the GN has no business banning products from the EU that are legally sold in retail stores, such as European foods.

But he said that as a proprietor of the Liquor Commission, the GN does have the right to decide which liquor products to buy and re-sell to Nunavut residents.

“The critical difference is this: in the case of alcohol, it is the government itself that is doing the selling, and I absolutely believe that the government has the right to decide what products it will or will not sell from its own premises,” he said.

The motion does not call on the Liquor Commission to remove or destroy its existing inventory of liquor products from the EU.

Once its current stocks are sold, the Liquor Commission would simply no longer order new supplies of alcohol that originate from the EU, Schell said.

It’s also not clear right now if GN has the legal ability, or the willingness, to implement Schell’s motion when the commission’s existing stocks of European alcohol products run out.

As of the last week of November, 2009, the Rankin Inlet liquor warehouse listed many EU liquor products, including:

Guinness stout beer: 3,790 units

Stella Artois beer: 2,458 units

Glenlivet single malt Scotch: 199 units

Bailey’s Original Irish Cream liqueur: 531 units

Chianti Ruffino red wine: 216 units

Chateau Latour Chardonnay white wine: 720 units.

In addition, there are many other brands of EU beer, wine, liquor and liqueur in stock at the Liquor Commission in its Rankin Inlet and Iqaluit warehouses.

But the most popular products appear to be of Canadian or North American manufacture, such as:

• Molson’s Canadian beer: 41,005 units

• Budweiser beer: 37,968 units

• Smirnoff vodka (1140 ml): 2,510 units

• Seagram’s Crown Royal whisky: 2,426 units