Paul Watson has lost his ship. Oh well:

An RCMP emergency response team stormed a ship owned by a militant environmental group Saturday, seizing the vessel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and arresting its senior officers for allegedly interfering with the East Coast seal hunt.

Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said the provocative move amounted to an “act of war,” but federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said he had to act to protect hunters from a “bunch of money-sucking manipulators.”

Mr. Watson, speaking in an interview from New York, said armed officers from two coast guard vessels scrambled aboard the Farley Mowat at around 11 a.m. ADT in the Cabot Strait – the body of water between Cape Breton and Newfoundland.

Mr. Watson maintains the Farley Mowat is a Dutch-registered vessel and doesn't have to submit to Canadian regulations.

“We're regarding this as an unlawful boarding,” he said.

Watson is not going to find much sympathy from the people of the Atlantic provinces:

The captain of the Cape Breton sealing vessel who called for help said the arrests were long overdue.

“It's time, it's high time, it's past time that they did something with them,” said Pat Briand of Dingwall, N.S., the 55-year-old skipper of the Cathy Erlene.

Who's they? The government of Canada, of course. The entity that exercises sovereign control over the land and sea and air of this country. A body of parliamentarians in Ottawa elected by the people.

Elizabeth May of the Green Party is running in Central Nova, a riding in Nova Scotia, the province from which the Cathy Erlene sets sail.

Elizabeth May has already had to distance herself from Paul Watson when Watson did all but cheer at the death of four sealers:

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has decided to resign from the advisory board of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society after the group’s leader, Paul Watson, said Wednesday that the killing of seals in the annual hunt "is an even greater tragedy" than the death of four sealers.

Ms. May, who has long been a member of the society’s advisory board, decided during the course of a telephone interview Thursday that she should resign.

"It doesn’t mean overall the Sea Shepherd society has not done good work, but as the leader of a federal political party, I probably shouldn’t be on an advisory committee," she said from New York, where she was taking part in a panel discussion.

Frankly, that was an easy move for May. Watson's comments were so over the top that acting offended would not be too hard a sell to members of the hard-core environmental factions of the Green Party.

But Watson's comments today were different. He is attacking Canada's sovereignty.

Elizabeth May has to respond to this. As a potential parliamentarian, and in particular, by virtue of being leader of her party, a potential prime minister, she has a duty to respond to anyone who makes a statement that denies Canada's sovereignty.

Elizabeth May might not like that law and might have it changed should she come to power. Fair enough. Choosing to change the law is also a sovereign right of the government of Canada.

Heck, Canada might exercise discretion in how or when a particular law is enforced. That is a risky business, since laws ought to be applied universally and consistently, but sometimes an exception makes sense.

But these are powers exercised by the Canadian government. It is not up to Paul Watson, who thinks he is a nation unto himself, to declare that he is beyond the power of Canadian law enforcement, and that this immunity extends to whomever he chooses to grant it.

Obviously, Paul Watson's declarations are irrelevant in practise, as witnessed by the successful RCMP operation today.

But as someone running for public office, Elizabeth May owes it to the people of Central Nova to make it clear that whatever policies she hopes will be implemented in Canadian law, the fact remains that the law is the law, and that Paul Watson, and any other environmentalist planning to break the law in a serious way, is whistling in the dark if he or she thinks Elizabeth May's Green Party is going to support them.

Why Elizabeth May in particular? Because of her close ties to Paul Watson, of course, and because of her ties to his organization.

Elizabeth May's Green Party has candidates across the country getting ready to run for office. That's serious stuff. These Greens have no time or patience for those who think the law is some abstract fiction, easily ignored as a trivial anachronism.

At least, that's what I hope Elizabeth May will say.

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