Canada has No Intention of Joining the IWC

At this year’s annual meeting in June, the International Whaling Commission adopted a resolution urging Canada to refrain from any whaling without IWC permission, and to rejoin the IWC. In the light of the unsuccessful attempt by the US at this year’s IWC meeting to achieve a grey whale quota for the Makah Indians under the aboriginal subsistence category, well-informed observers suggest that it is not likely that a Canadian request for a bowhead quota on behalf of the Canadian Inuit would have been passed. As with the case of the Makah Indians, the ancient whaling traditions of the Canadian Inuit have been at rest for a long time because of overexploitation by white commercial whalers. Throughout history, the meat and blubber from the bowhead have played a very important role in the Inuit diet.

“Canadian aboriginal people are strongly opposed to joining the International Whaling Commission, and don’t consider that their interests would be properly taken into account by that commission”, said Doubleday in a CBC radio interview on Sept. 13. Doubleday is the federal government’s director-general of Fisheries and Oceans Science.

“The Inuit see the IWC as an obstacle, not an aid, to effective management of whale stocks.” wrote Rosemari Kupanat, President of the Inuit Tapirisat, the Canadian Inuit Council, in a letter to the Canadian government on Feb. 24, 1994. She strongly warned the Canadian government against succumbing to the pressure to rejoin the IWC. The IWC “has come to be dominated by the protectionist anti-hunting sentiment, and it has lost any hope of instituting a rational or scientific whale management regime”, she wrote.