Canadian lawmakers are to protest against the European Union’s ban on seal imports today — with their stomachs.

About 30 senators, MPs and provincial ministers will gather in the parliamentary dining room in Ottawa to feast on seal meat in a rebuke to opponents of the country’s annual seal cull.

The menu, prepared by the parliamentary chef, features hors d’oeuvres of sliced seal sausage and a main course of bacon-wrapped seal loin in a port reduction.

“It will be the first time for most of them — especially in a very exquisite way, cooking it with port,” Céline Hervieux-Payette, the Liberal senator from Quebec who organised the meal, told The Times. “I’m very sure it’s going to be good.”

Canadian politicians from across the political spectrum are angry about the EU decision to ban imports of seal products from the controversial hunt.

Up to 270,000 harp seals are killed every year in March and April with guns or the hakapik, a spiked club.

The annual cull first stirred international indignation four decades ago when television pictures showed baby seals being battered to death. The EU imposed its ban in July after years of complaints by animal rights activists who decry the hunt as barbaric and poorly monitored.

This year’s hunt has provoked protests from Sir Paul McCartney and the Canadian actress Pamela Anderson.

The EU ban covers not only sealskin — which is used to make coats, bags, clothing and even sporrans — but meat, blubber and seal oil, which is used in some omega-3 pills.

It excludes imports derived from traditional hunts by the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic.

Canada has requested consultations with the EU at the World Trade Organisation in the first move towards an official challenge of the European ban.

Canadian politicians say that the ban threatens an industry that produced C$10 million (£7 million) in exports last year for people living in remote Atlantic fishing villages. The Government says that about 6,000 people take part in the annual east coast hunt. One politician in the northern Nunavut territory has proposed that the region should retaliate by banning European alcohol, ranging from Scotch whisky to French wine, in its three off-licences.

G7 finance ministers declined to take up the seal hunt row at their recent meeting at Iqaluit in the icy Canadian north. The visiting ministers also skipped the chance to sample seal meat for themselves at a “country food” event organised by Inuit leaders at a local school.

Ms Hervieux-Payette said that she decided to organise today’s “seal meal” after eating the meat on a recent seal hunt.

“I was in the north two weeks ago and I went seal hunting with some Inuit hunters. I spent a day in minus 35 degrees. I ate the raw meat.”

She added: “Because I am of French origin, we are used to eating things raw — whether it’s fish or meat.

“It tastes a lot like oyster. It’s a little bit soft. You have a taste of the ocean. It’s a little bit sloppy but it’s very smooth. It’s like eating sushi.”

The senator said that she had also eaten cooked seal meat cooked at a Montreal restaurant that serves it. When she started sending out invitations for the C$35-a-head meal, she was overwhelmed by the response. All the main Canadian parties will be represented among the dinersat the C$35-a-head meal, she added.

Ms Hervieux-Payette said that there was only one critic in the Canadian Parliament, a fellow senator from the Liberal Party, Mac Harb, “We have 400 on one side and only one on the other side,” she said.

Mr Harb, who is introducing a Bill to end the commercial seal hunt, said that the vast majority of seal hunters never eat seal meat. They usually take the pelt and leave the skinned body on the ice, he said.

He planned to attend the seal meal but not to sample the food, Mr Harb said.

Seal of approval

• Seals have been hunted by Inuits in Canada for more than 4,000 years

• Seal meat is a deep red, a result of the extra haemoglobin that allows the mammals to store oxygen when they dive. Critics describe its tender texture and flavour as closer to liver than steak. The fatty meat and its blubber are excellent sources of iron, protein, vitamin A and vitamin B

• Canada, Norway, Russia, Namibia and Greenland are the only countries still to hunt seals

• Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, refused to eat seal meat at a G7 dinner in February. He could not, however, avoid the seal-upholstered chairs

Source: Times archives