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A smell, like bad sushi

As a recent, and reluctant, convert to vegetarianism - full backsliding privileges in play, especially when the Canadian National BBQ Championships roll into Dusty's in August - I'm shocked, shocked at G-G Mikki Jean's pronouncement upon tasting a fr
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As a recent, and reluctant, convert to vegetarianism - full backsliding privileges in play, especially when the Canadian National BBQ Championships roll into Dusty's in August - I'm shocked, shocked at G-G Mikki Jean's pronouncement upon tasting a freshly-slaughtered seal's heart earlier this week. "It tastes like sushi," she's reported as saying. Sushi? I thought everything tasted like chicken. Whoda thunk.

The G-G, normally hip, urbane and über trendy, was being culturally sensitive and situationally appropriate on her official visit to Rankin Inlet, a place so off the beaten track in Canada's vast North that most Canadians would have better luck finding the long-buried, ancient cities of the Old Testament on an upside down map than pinpointing its location within a 500 km radius.

Truth be told, the G-G's actions were so of-the-moment they almost make me have nice thoughts about the antiquated office she's expected to hold for another year. The Queen's representative not only wolfed down a piece of the recently beating seal heart, she wielded an ulu like polar bear Dundee to help gut the sacrificial animal. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out she'd called dibs on the pelt and was, as I write, busy pulling caribou gut through it to stitch a nice, warm pair of mitts to wear when she boxes the ears of the oh-so outraged.

Not unexpectedly, the outraged, the lunatic fringe of animal rights activists, have gone off their nut over this. Attempting to prove, once again, that mixing black and white yields, well, black and white as opposed to shades of grey, a PETA spokesman - name and general existence unimportant - is reported to have said, "The Canadian Governor-General's sick PR stunt is a predictable, if revolting, attempt to save a dying industry." It should be noted at this point the gentleman in question was speaking for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, not the other PETA, People Eating Tasty Animals.

A protocol droid for Queen Elizabeth - the G-G's reputed bosswoman - tsk-tsked and suggested Mikki might receive a severe tongue lashing for her very un-viceregal attempt to show solidarity and provide spiritual succour to the Inuit. The Queen, reported to be dining on corgi culled from her domestic herd, replied, after being reminded which colony Canada was, "Sushi? We thought it tasted like chicken."

The G-G, for her part, simply smiled sardonically at the threatened verbal dressing down. "I'll be happy to hear anything they have to say. Then I'll just let my leetle friend do the talking for me ," she said, lovingly scraping hair from her forearm with her finely-honed ulu and giggling at the thought of personally delivering the protocol droid's tongue to Queen E in a robin's-egg blue Birks box.

The negative reactions of PETA and others to sealgate - I just thought I'd beat the CBC to the punch on calling it that - stem from the fact that things aren't always what they seem to be, especially when you don't fully grasp the distinction between your head and your ass. While, on the surface, it may seem as though the G-G was being a sensitive representative of the Queen and Canada's government, showing respect for the Inuit's cult of the seal, what she was actually doing was being a puppet for Big Sealing, the east coast conglomerate of angry white guys who club baby seals and wear tacky plaid jackets while trying to goad Sir Paul McCartney to come within clobbering distance, a potential act of mercy for those of us who can't reach the remote control fast enough when his insipid music comes on the radio.

Little Becky Aldworth, director of Canadian wildlife issues for the Humane Society of the United States - am I the only one who is astonished they would even have a director of Canadian wildlife issues? - explained what was actually going down for those of us too blind to grasp the bigger, read conspiracy, issues at hand. She said Mikki's gustatory excess "... was yet another cynical attempt by the Canadian government to blur the lines between Inuit subsistence hunts and the industrial scale slaughter of seals for their fur which is conducted almost entirely by non-aboriginal people in Canada."

She may be right. While her analogy seems a bit like suggesting Whistler's beer league slow pitch softball is a threat to major league baseball's free agency, one can never be too suspicious of the wily Stephen Harper and his cabal of far right baby seal clubbers. There was, after all, surprisingly strong support for the private member's bill calling on the Canadian Olympic Committee to force the country's winter Olympic athletes to wear sealskin next February in Vancouver. While this was, no doubt, in reference to the original sealskin speedsuits worn so successfully by the Crazy Canucks during the brief, pre-spandex world dominance of downhill skiing, the Olympic athletes deemed it a symbolic gesture too far. They have, however, said they'd consider distributing sealskin condoms to their fellow athletes from around the world. But I digress.

The G-G herself didn't do much to quell the speculation her actions had a larger symbolic significance. Smiling with bloody teeth, she channelled the spirit of her inner Pierre Trudeau when she replied, "Take from that (feasting on seal heart) what you will," when a reporter, having regained her composure after losing her Big Mac at the sight of the G-G gutting a seal, asked if she was indeed sending a message to Europeans. The EU recently banned Canadian seal products, an act that outraged the plaid jacket set but didn't get the Inuit of Rankin Inlet very excited.

While not going so far as to pirouette for the cameras, Mikki was seen physically restraining the stiffening middle finger of her left hand with her ulu -wielding right hand when the question came up.

Now if all this seems just a little bit silly to you, congratulations. You have a firm grasp of reality, which is more than can be said for the various groups getting their knickers in a knot over it. Eating seal is exactly the kind of thing the G-G ought to be doing. If we're going to retain this anachronism of royalty at all, let's embrace it for all the theatre it's worth. Sample pies and preserves at provincial exhibitions. Eat dog in Little Korea, seal heart in the far-out North, and perogies in Edmonton.

There are so many things going on in the world right now that deserve outrage. Environmental degradation, crimes against humanity, nuclear proliferation, Chihuahuas, to name just a few. Getting outraged over an act of cultural kindness and personal, dietary indulgences that just may have more sinister implications debases the whole act of getting outraged. And that's truly outrageous.