Calgary council votes to ban shark fin soup

CALGARY – Shark fin soup has been called pricey, extravagant and flavourless. This October, it will become illegal in Calgary.

Council voted 13-2 Monday to ban the possession of shark fins in the city, following the move of several North American jurisdictions to use legislation to denounce the practice.

Millions of sharks die every year after their fins have been removed then they’re tossed back into the water.

Canada doesn’t ban the import of fins, though it’s illegal in Canadian waters to engage in “finning.”

Ald. Brian Pincott, who led the anti-fin push, secured more than 20 letters of support from Chinese Calgarians. Among them was Raymond Yee, son of the former owners of the Regency Palace restaurant.

Yee, 40, wasn’t that keen on having it at his wedding, but his family — pillars of Chinatown — wouldn’t think of not serving it.

“When I was working there, the younger generation didn’t see the value in it,” he said.

“They just went with it because the parents wanted that. It’s really a symbol of wealth to have it in a meal. Because it’s really nothing but cartilage, right?”

His parents, who sold the Regency last year, aren’t keen on a ban that would affect restaurants, Yee added.

Ald. John Mar, council’s only Chinese member, also supported it, saying the tradition isn’t immune from change because of the growing awareness of the fragile ocean ecosystem.

Mar quipped he has an agreement with the world’s sharks: “I don’t eat you and you don’t eat me.”

Calgary officials will draft a bylaw by October, and the ban will take effect immediately, said bylaw director Bill Bruce. He noted he has spoken to his counterparts in other jurisdictions, where councils have already banned the product.

Shark fin soup is available in several Calgary restaurants, though often as an off-the-menu item for $50 to $200 a bowl.

“Naturally, if it’s in plain view, it’s not (difficult). But if it’s an under-the-counter item, it would be more challenging,” Bruce said.

“I think that it’s probably a stronger message to the public than enforcement of it. If it’s a duly appointed law in the City of Calgary, yes we can enforce.”

A number of Ontario cities have passed similar bans, including Toronto. Mississauga’s ban was the first to take effect, on July 1. But the ban is already having an effect, said Rob Sinclair, Canadian director of WildAid.

“We’ve seen that even before the ban takes effect, restaurants stop serving it,” he said.

“Even before the ban takes effect, restaurants stop serving it” ACTIVIST ROB SINCLAIR

Ingrid Kuenzel, the leader of Shark Fin-Free Calgary, predicted banquet halls will be reluctant to serve a food that clients can easily file a complaint to 311.

Calgary’s only council dissenters were aldermen Jim Stevenson and Andre Chabot. Both argued that it wasn’t city hall’s place to crack down on what businesses can and can’t sell.

“I know it’s maybe not the politically correct thing to do, but out of principle there’s just no way I can support us interfering in this way,” Stevenson said.

Council will lobby the federal government to take action of its own on the sale and distribution of shark fins.

Ken Lee of the Calgary Chinese Merchants Association said there’s much frustration about the suddenness of this proposal, before his group and other civic leaders would hold town halls to discuss it.

“I talk to restaurants. They don’t care, but they say it’s not the point,” Lee told the Calgary Herald on Monday. “It’s the way it’s being shoved in there. There’s no understanding. No dialogue.

“Is it their job to start banning different products? If somebody has a lobster, they throw the lobster live into boiling water.”

Pincott said he wanted the city to seize an opportunity to take a stand for the world’s oceans before international endangered species conventions come in.

Several states on the U.S. west coast have banned shark fins, and China this month announced the soup would be phased out at state banquets over three years.