WTO Seals:Canada kept export program for indigenous products under wraps til after AB hearing

One of Canada's key contentions in the WTO Seals dispute is that the indigenous exception in the EU ban is lacking in evenhandedness, favoring Greenland seal products over Canadian products.  The exception is de jure neutral and available to indigenous products regardless of origin.  But Canada has maintained that it is de facto discriminatory because Canadian indigenous seal products are not really suited to take advantage of export markets.  That's not a good argument about discrimination because Canada has done nothing to connect the problem it alleges to the design or structure of the EU's exception; it is also undermined by evidence presented by Canada itself from Nunavut that the reason that indiigenous seal products are not selling in export markets is just plain lack of market demand.  Well, it also turns out that Canada, whle telling the WTO  that Canadian indigenous sealing products aren't  somehow suited for export markets, had been funding a program to promote just such exports . http://bit.ly/1kxUw8v Normally when Canada does something for sealers they waste no time in shouting about it, to get the political credit in that community.  But this time the measures were kept under wraps for several months.  They were announced the Monday immediately after the week of the AB hearings in the case.  That date doesn't seem like a coincidence!