OTTAWA – Canada's Olympic athletes will be wearing seal skin on their 2010 uniforms to protest an international ban on the product – that is, if the country's parliamentarians have their way.

The federal Parliament voted Wednesday to use the Vancouver Games to protest a European Union ban on seal products.

Parliamentarians from all parties agreed unanimously to a motion from the Bloc Quebecois that says the Games should be used to promote products from the seal hunt.

The motion suggests one possibility: that Canada's Olympic uniform include at least one seal product, likely skin.

Fisheries Minister Gail Shea applauded the idea, while wondering whether it might be too late.

"I would imagine the Olympic clothing is all designed and probably made by now," Shea said.

"But I think it's a good symbolic suggestion – to add something to the outfit of our athletes. I think it would be a good statement for the Canadian sealing industry, and Canada's support of it."

Parliamentary motions are non-binding on either the government or the Canadian Olympic Committee, but are an expression of the will of Canada's elected politicians.

The European Parliament voted massively in favour of a seal ban, which could have a dramatic impact on Canadian hunters and exporters.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he does not want the ban to scuttle separate talks on Canada-EU free trade.

But Canadian lawyers are already considering a legal challenge, while the EU council of ministers considers whether to implement the ban.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said the Canadian government was outmanoeuvred on the public-relations front and that it should have been more aggressive defending the seal hunt.

Duceppe singled out one country that had no business lecturing Canada on animal rights: Spain, where fights with bulls in front of cheering spectators is a national sport.

"I find it completely abnormal to see protests (against the seal hunt) in Spain – the country that holds the bullfights," Duceppe said.

"We need a campaign. Our adversaries conducted one heck of a campaign, and Canada did not conduct a major one on the promotional level. ...

"The Olympics aren't a trivial thing. We could use this event to shed light on this, but we need to use other events, too."

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Duceppe shot back at one questioner who asked whether Olympic athletes might bristle at the idea of being forced to wear animal pelts to make a political statement.

"I don't know what my shoes are made of – but if they're not made out of plastic, they're not made out of straw, they come from an animal."

Read more about: