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Sunday 05.02.2012

Canada's prime minister eats seal— and his words

And, oh yes, he announced a new economic development agency, CanNor, would be located in Iqaluit.

Canada's premier Stephen Harper talked economic growth and the merits of seal meat during his Arctic tour Tuesday...



Harper kicked off the second day of his five-day trip by officially rolling out a long-promised northern development agency to funnel business support and infrastructure cash, Canadian Press reports.

Harper said the agency, known as CanNor, will have a budget of $50 million over five years and will be headquartered in Iqaluit, with regional offices in Yellowknife and Whitehorse.

Harper and his cabinet also ate a lunch of raw and boiled seal meat behind closed doors, away from the cameras.

Still, Harper seemed happy to defend the hunt as an important northern way of life in public - even if he wanted to keep the lunch private.

"The government support for the sealing industry is well known," he said.
"The standards in this industry are better quite frankly than the standards of other industries that deal with animal products. There is no reason the seal industry should be singled out for discriminatory treatment by Europeans or any other nation."

Harper said locating CanNor in a place where the economic challenges - including homelessness and youth unemployment - are greatest only makes sense.

A photograph of two young boys sleeping outside a grocery store in Iqaluit on the eve of Harper's visit received media attention in Canada.

Harper said the photo depicts a "terrible, tragic story."

"I think ... it pains all our hearts when you see that kind of story. I think it would be naive for us to believe ... that this is an isolated story, either here in Iqaluit, in Nunavut, or frankly anywhere else in the country.

"We believe obviously the first and most important aspect of addressing these problems is economic opportunity."

The sad photo wasn't the only political football of the day, CP notes.

An unfortunate spelling error in a press release from the Prime Minister's Office was noted by the blog at http://titiraqti.wordpress.com.

The release repeatedly spelled the capital of Nunavut as Iqualuit - rather than Iqaluit, which means "many fish" in the Inuktitut language.
The extra "u" makes a big difference.

"It means people with unwiped bums," said Sandra Inutiq of the office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut.

"It's not exactly a nice term."

Harper's was apologetic, calling the gaffe a human error that might teach Canadians an important lesson about spelling mistakes.

"Hopefully this unfortunate typo, which we have corrected, will inform the greater public that there is no (extra) 'u' in Iqaluit," said Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas.